Danish Energy Agency Re-Rejects Open-Door Applications; South Korea Awards 689 MW of Offshore Wind Projects; Floating VAWT Demo Gets Funding
A lot was going on in the global offshore wind sector this week, and in case the news from the US offshore wind market were the most prominent in your LinkedIn feed these days, you might want to catch up with other news too. For that, follow our #ICYMI posts coming up over the weekend and read our recap 👇
The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has revised the applications for feasibility study permits under the open-door scheme, for which the process was suspended in 2023 and reactivated last year. The DEA has now made new decisions in the cases and maintains the rejection of all 37 applications.
The DEA put the processing of cases under the open-door scheme on hold in February 2023, saying the granting of permits for offshore wind and other renewable energy projects under this scheme may be in breach of EU law.
In May and June 2024, the Energy Complaints Board overturned a number of decisions rejecting applications for feasibility study permits and forwarded the cases to the Danish Energy Agency for reconsideration.
The Danish Energy Agency has now made new decisions in these cases and, on 1 September 2025, issued decisions to 37 applicants, including three applications for offshore wind projects with elements of testing. The applicants have all had their applications for feasibility study permits for offshore wind projects under the scheme rejected.
South Korea has awarded 689 MW of offshore wind projects in the competitive tender for fixed-bottom offshore wind organised in the first half of 2025, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Korea Energy Agency (KEA) said on 1 September.
Earlier this year, KEA announced that the tender offering an offshore wind capacity of 1.25 GW and 1 GW for solar projects would be held in the first half of 2025, after MOTIE announced the competitive bidding for offshore wind would be taking place twice a year.
The now-completed round was split into two tracks: a public-led category with about 500 MW available and a general category for private-sector projects offering about 750 MW.
Four developers were selected in the public-led track, with a combined capacity of 689 MW, while no projects were chosen from the general group, according to KEA.
A consortium behind a project called Verti-Go has secured EUR 15 million from Horizon Europe to demonstrate SeaTwirl’s floating wind technology with a 2 MW turbine, including the design, fabrication, installation and operation.
The project was selected as the successful applicant for funding under the EU programme Demonstrations of innovative floating wind concepts in May this year. Horizon Europe then invited the consortium into the grant preparation stage of the funding call, which has now been finalised with the signing of the grant and consortium agreements.
The project is led by SeaTwirl as the technical coordinator and the University College Cork as the project coordinator, with consortium partners EDP – Cnet Centre for New Energy Technologies SA, Greenov, Next Fabrication, Sub Connected AB, Sowento, RSTER, PNO, Bureau Veritas, and Zorlu Enerji. The project advisory board includes DNV.
Work on the Verti-Go project will start with the design phase, kicking off on 1 October 2025.
The design phase is estimated to be completed around the end of 2026, followed by the construction and operations phase that is planned to last until the end of 2029, according to SeaTwirl.
Floating offshore wind projects featuring Principle Power’s WindFloat technology have delivered more than 1 TWh of energy production since the first pilot project was installed in 2011, the company announced on 3 September.
The 1 TWh output includes generation from WindFloat 1, a 2 MW pilot project in Portugal (2011-2016) and Scotland (2018-2020); WindFloat Atlantic, a 25 MW project operating since 2020 off the coast of Portugal; and Kincardine offshore wind farm, a 48 MW project in operation since 2021 off the coast of Scotland.
The projects withstood waves of up to 20 metres and winds of up to 214 km/h (equivalent to a Category 4 typhoon), said Principle Power.
This milestone demonstrates the maturity of the WindFloat designs and the readiness of the company’s fourth-generation designs for commercial-scale projects, according to the company.
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