When the Dutch annual event Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC2025) opens its doors at Amsterdam RAI in November, security, resilience, and geopolitics will sit alongside energy transition and ecosystem protection as central themes.
The OEEC conference agenda offers a window into how offshore energy is redefining itself at a time of turbulence; balancing sustainability goals with affordability and security, while watching developments across the Atlantic where the U.S. offshore wind industry is facing existential challenges at the same time as Brazil and Colombia are ramping up work on bringing their first wind farms at sea to realisation.
In Europe, work on connecting more renewable energy to the electricity grids continues, although much more cautiously and with a greater focus on securing immediate supply.
Oil and gas, and other forms of fossil energy, are (re)gaining strength as energy demand keeps increasing amid an unstable international environment.
Wind, Oil and (Geo)Politics
While most of the European countries are trying to keep the promise on doubling down on renewables and energy resilience, the U.S. offers a stark contrast. Recent months have brought a series of policy shocks that could reshape the U.S. offshore wind sector and reverberate across global supply chains.
In July 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior rescinded all designated Wind Energy Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf, effectively wiping the slate clean for new leasing. Just weeks later, the DOI issued a stop-work order for Revolution Wind, an offshore wind farm that is already 80% complete. This came only a few months after the Empire Wind 1 project was halted as the construction started offshore.
Analysts warned in April, following the Empire Wind 1 pause, that the U.S. could miss out on as much as $75 billion in investment if such reversals continue. The U.S. Interior Secretary said in September that the government was “taking a deep look” into five projects under construction. The DOI has also moved to revoke its own approvals given to offshore wind projects under the previous administration, saying the permitting was rushed through and was given under a different interpretation of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
At the same time, the U.S. government has cut permitting time needed to approve oil and gas projects and has also implemented policy moves and regulatory reforms to boost coal and its position in the U.S. energy strategy.
In Europe, offshore wind is also facing challenges as the costs of building offshore wind farms increased by around 40% following the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and supply chain bottlenecks.
However, the governments are trying to fight the effects of the macroeconomic conditions on the offshore wind industry, while ensuring the immediate supply through fossil energy that is available and renewable energy capacities that are up and running.
In the Netherlands, the government just recently approved €1 billion for subsidising offshore wind farms to be tendered in 2026, after years of zero-subsidy projects winning the tenders. This will be only a temporary measure until a Contract for Difference (CfD) scheme is established. According to the Dutch government, it is backing offshore wind as the only resource that can provide greater generation capacity and be built in a short time to meet the upcoming demand for electricity.
In the UK, whose CfD scheme is a model for the Dutch government’s future price guarantee for offshore wind projects, an action plan was presented at the beginning of 2025, providing a roadmap to an (almost) fully clean power system in the UK by 2030. The roadmap is set to lead to clean sources, with offshore wind in particular, making up 95% of Great Britain’s electricity generation, with gas being used for no more than 5% of total generation.
OEEC Day One: Transition Under Pressure
Day one of the conference, 25 November, opens with a sharp question: How to make the most of North Sea Gas?
The session explores how big of a role gas still has in securing supply while Europe accelerates its renewable deployment, with the debate less about prolonging fossil fuels and more about finding a way to balance immediate needs with climate targets.
Later in the morning, the focus turns from hydrocarbons to habitats, with the conference session Invest in Nature Regeneration When Building Offshore set to highlight projects designed not only to avoid harming marine environments but to actively restore them. The shift from mitigation to regeneration mirrors how offshore energy is being asked to prove its environmental credentials, not just its emissions reductions.
The afternoon brings the Netherlands’ offshore wind ambitions to the fore. In The Road Ahead for Offshore Wind in the Netherlands, companies like Van Oord and RWE will discuss how to sustain growth in an industry grappling with rising costs, supply chain strain, and permitting bottlenecks. Policy frameworks, public-private partnerships, and investor confidence are expected to dominate the conversation, especially as the Dutch government recently announced a one-billion-euro boost to offshore wind projects in 2026, a temporary measure until the CfD framework is established.
The day closes with Financing the Renewable Transition, where financiers and developers face the central challenge: how to channel capital into renewables and carbon capture while ensuring projects are profitable. For investors wary of volatility, stable frameworks matter as much as innovation.
What to expect on Day 2 will follow in the next article. Stay tuned.
Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference is coming up on 25 & 26 November 2025 at Amsterdam RAI. Book your tickets or see if any more exhibitor stands are available at the OEEC website: https://oeec.biz/
