Market Assessment
NREL annually evaluates the global and U.S. offshore wind energy market, including current state and trends.
Every year, NREL researchers evaluate the offshore wind energy market on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). The resulting report provides unbiased information on market trends, technologies, and costs.
Researchers analyze data obtained from a variety of sources about offshore wind energy projects that are both operating and under development to offer past, current, and forward-looking perspectives. Those sources, which are also validated against one another and other sources, include:
- NREL's internal database, detailing project characteristics, economic attributes, technical specifications, and installation as well as operations and maintenance information for 2,036 active offshore wind energy projects in 49 countries, which totals an active capacity of 1,788,670 MW
- 4C Offshore's Wind Farm Database
- 4C Offshore's Vessel Database
- 4C Offshore's Project Opportunity Pipeline
- The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's online published data
- BloombergNEF's Renewable Energy Project Database
- Wood Mackenzie's Wind Turbine Trends.
The researchers consider four areas of the industry: the U.S. market, the global market, siting and technology trends, and domestic and global cost and finances.
Key Findings
In the report, the authors detail the global and domestic offshore wind energy industries to provide readers with context and help them navigate technical and market barriers and opportunities.
The 2024 assessment provides data and trends in wind energy development, technology, cost, and performance through Dec. 31, 2023, for the global wind energy industry and from Jan. 1, 2023, through May 31, 2024, for the domestic wind energy industry as well as forecasts for the near future.
Publications
Offshore Wind Market Report: 2024 Edition, NREL Technical Report (2024)
Offshore Wind Market Report: 2023 Edition, DOE Technical Report (2023)
Offshore Wind Market Report: 2022 Edition, DOE Technical Report (2022)
Offshore Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition, DOE Technical Report (2021)
2019 Offshore Wind Market Report, DOE Technical Report (2019)
2018 Offshore Technologies Wind Market Report, DOE Technical Report (2018)
To complement the NREL-produced report, WETO simultaneously releases a land-based wind energy market report, prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a distributed wind energy market report, produced by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Find these other 2024 reports as well as past offshore wind energy market reports (2012–2023) on WETO's wind energy market reports webpage.
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Last Updated Sept. 29, 2025