Offshore Wind

In the ever-shifting winds of "who-did-it-bigger?," China has just taken a back seat to European wind company Siemens Gamesa. The firm recently planted a colossal, world-record-setting turbine in the Østerild test field in Denmark.

There's an enormous new offshore wind turbine coming up in Denmark courtesy of Siemens Gamesa. But as it turns out, even at 21 MW, it's not nearly big enough to hold a candle to what China's got cooking.

NYC will soon be getting its own personal offshore wind farm. The Empire Wind 1 project has received a $3 billion project financing package and is expected to go online in 2027, powering roughly half a million borough residents. But what's the catch?

China, the undisputed global leader in wind energy, has just set another world record for the tallest and highest capacity offshore wind turbine, taller than the Eiffel Tower, The Chrysler Building, and longer than the longest US aircraft carrier.

Mingyang Smart Energy said last week that it's installed “the world’s largest single-capacity offshore wind turbine” in a project in Hainan, China. The turbine delivers a power output of up to 20 MW, besting its previous 18 MW model from 2023.

Following successful trials last year at a UK wind farm, Denmark's Ørsted has now put heavy lift drones to work at a 94-turbine offshore wind farm in the North Sea – completing resupply missions up to 15 times faster while also reducing costs.

In the Belgian North Sea, maintenance vessels are now able to tether to an automatic cable at a wind farm to get their batteries topped up. The innovative system is the first of its kind and a major step in helping reduce emissions from shipping.

Wind Catching Systems has received an important tick of approval for its enormous 40-megawatt Windcatcher offshore floating wind turbine array, as it prepares to build a full size demonstrator project off the Norwegian coast.

These remarkable modular wind turbines stack themselves up section by section, removing the need for gigantic cranes and promising to slash the cost of offshore wind installation by as much as half. New investment has kicked off the first project.

Part of the exorbitant cost of offshore wind energy is the massive crane ships required to install the damn things – but Norwegian company Windspider has come up with a brilliantly lightweight crane system that promises to slash costs in half.

An experimental new undersea robot shows great promise for use in the upkeep of offshore renewable energy platforms. Because it has the ability to climb vertical underwater surfaces – and paint them – it's known as the Crawfish.

The world needs gargantuan amounts of clean energy moving forward, making this an area of colossal and growing opportunity for disruptive innovations. Here are some of the fascinating energy ideas and technologies that made us most hopeful in 2023.