Mastering Asia’s Wind Lifecycle

By Malcolm Ramsay

Offshore wind development is surging in Asia, with operators already looking ahead to a first wave of decommissioning activity as projects near end of life from the 2030s onwards.

From Issue 2, 2026 of Breakbulk Magazine

(5-minute read)

Asia is in the midst of a significant boom in offshore wind development, but for breakbulk operators the outlook over the next decade remains fraught with unique risks, as they navigate a sector that is rapidly diverging from the established European playbook. This is particularly true as operators look ahead to the forecast wave of decommissioning activity that will begin as current wind farms near end of life from the 2030s onwards.

While Europe reigned as the global leader in offshore wind for many decades, its crown was taken by the Asia-Pacific region in 2022, driven by an unprecedented installation surge in China. Today, China accounts for more than 50% of total global commissioned capacity, fundamentally moving the industry’s center of gravity and the associated demand for heavy-lift logistics away from the North Sea.

Asia, led by China and India, commissioned 131 gigawatts (GW) of new wind capacity (onshore and offshore) in 2025, or 80% of the global total, according to a report from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The region is expected to add about 600 to 700 GW of capacity between now and 2030.

Some industry leaders believe offshore wind decommissioning in Asia remains a longer-term prospect. Matt Bowden, lead commercial manager APAC at Cadeler, a specialist in the transportation, installation and maintenance of offshore wind turbine generators and foundations, said decommissioning in the region may not materialize for some time. Others in the sector, however, believe decommissioning demand could develop sooner.

Repowering Pivot

Despite the long-term viability of wind equipment, the unique challenges in the Asian market could move decommissioning timelines forward to as soon as the end of this decade, as economic, environmental and demand pressures combine. While most commercial projects in Asia are relatively new and OEM specifications permit many years of operations to come, forecasts suggest that owners may still choose early decommissioning.

This push is driven by the reality that prime shallow-water sites, particularly in Taiwan and China, are currently occupied by aging, low-yield turbines. Clearing these locations to make room for 15-megawatt (MW)-plus giants will increasingly be seen as an economic necessity, especially as new technologies supercharge the potential output from each site. What this means in practice is that the first significant wave of activity in the early 2030s will likely manifest as “repowering” rather than full-scale decommissioning.

For breakbulk operators, this translates to a complex hybrid of partial decommissioning services and the simultaneous installation of new equipment. The players that succeed in navigating this “two-way” logistics challenge will set the foundations for a long-term competitive advantage when the full-scale decommissioning tsunami finally hits in the 2040s.

However, prior to that, the path to both installation and eventual removal is hampered by a significant cost gap. As Simon Engfred, regional lead analyst for APAC at Aegir Insights, points out regarding the Japanese market: “The CAPEX premium for offshore wind in Japan is real (and) installation is the single most stubborn cost component: Japan’s weather downtime is significant compared to Europe’s benchmark. Typhoon season, seismic design windows and metocean conditions are not going to improve materially.”

This engineering premium for typhoon and seismic certification can help create a “competitive moat” for breakbulk operators but may also act as a barrier to the “reverse logistics” needed for decommissioning. Engfred estimates that in Japan, current challenges equate to a 21% CAPEX premium and that this acts as a further barrier to entry “as regulatory requirements differ across APAC markets” and certification is often market specific.

Faced with a fragile vessel market, strict regulation that limits which ships can work in local waters, and tough environmental conditions, operators must decide now if they will build and deploy the specialized fleets necessary to handle both the construction boom and the premature retirement of the region’s first-generation assets.

This decision is complicated by the fact that the industry is not just fighting the elements, but also a lack of long-term commercial continuity. While the technical need for decommissioning will clearly emerge in the coming decades, the financial incentive for current owners to invest in infrastructure remains weak. This disconnect between the physical reality of aging assets and the financial structure of the projects themselves is creating a bottleneck that threatens to stall the sector’s maturity.

Fragmented Ownership

In Europe, mature fields have seen a transition from a construction-only mindset to a full-lifecycle strategy, requiring a fundamental shift in how operators view their assets, but evidence of a significant move in this direction in Asia remains subdued. This is largely due to the commercial reality of wind farm assets in Asia, which frequently change hands multiple times over their lifespan. As Bowden notes, the clients contracting for initial transport and installation are rarely the same entities who will eventually face the decommissioning bill.

“This isn’t typically something we’ve seen a demand for in the APAC region to date,” Bowden said. “It could be because wind farm assets typically change ownership multiple times over the course of their lifespan, and the clients we’re contracting with for T&I and O&M may not be the same clients who eventually need to consider decom.”

This fragmentation often leaves decommissioning as a “future problem” for the next owner, creating a strategic vacuum that proactive breakbulk operators can fill by offering long-term, lifecycle-based logistics.

Winning Asia Decom

Despite the numerous differences between the European and Asian landscape it seems clear that a shift towards decommissioning will ultimately manifest as the sector matures and that advantages will go to those who move beyond spot market charters and begin forming deep, local joint ventures. In markets where localization requirements apply, local alliances will likely be the only way to meet regulation and ensure a consistent seat at the table when the first contracts are tendered toward the end of the decade.

“Some markets — like Japan — have very stringent cabotage rules which require locally flagged vessels, while others — such as Taiwan and Australia — have a more pragmatic approach to the involvement of foreign vessels in our industry,” Bowden said. “In general, Cadeler does not welcome barriers to international participation in offshore wind markets, as we believe that an open supply chain approach fosters competition and more successful capacity build-out. That said, when it comes to partnering, we consider it an important component of long-term success in Korea and Japan and are actively engaged in fostering relationships with key local players in this regard.”

Success also hinges on securing the physical real estate necessary for decommissioning. Unlike the linear flow of a new-build project, decommissioning requires vast port-side laydown areas with high floor-loading capacities to hold weathered, oversized components awaiting processing. Operators who lock in long-term leases at key regional hubs like Taichung or Akita today will hold the ultimate leverage. By treating decommissioning as a 2030s "repowering” opportunity rather than a 2040s scrap problem, breakbulk players can turn these unique regional risks into a sustainable, long-term competitive moat.

While the fragmented ownership of Asian assets makes formal, long-term lifecycle partnerships difficult to sign today, European breakbulk operators must still be cognizant of this role to avoid becoming commoditized. In a market where assets change hands frequently, the operator who holds the digital twin or the historical maintenance data of a turbine becomes an indispensable part of the value chain for whoever the final owner may be.

By raising high-value, late-life offerings, such as structural integrity inspections and decommissioning FEED, in current tenders, firms can anchor themselves as the technical authority on an asset’s condition. This in turn can act as a bridge across ownership gaps, ensuring that when a project finally hits the decommissioning or repowering stage, the logistics provider is already the incumbent with the specific data and expertise needed for execution.

“Each challenge is manageable on its own. The real test comes when they converge within a single integrated program,” said Alan Campbell an independent decommissioning specialist. “The differentiator won’t be access to work. It will be the ability to sequence scope effectively, align contracting strategy and maintain strong program control offshore.”

Technological leadership will also serve as a way to bypass the region’s commercial constraints of high-cost premiums. Rather than waiting for a lifecycle contract that may never come, European operators can deploy digital and remote tools that provide immediate value in cutting current O&M costs while simultaneously shaping the reverse logistics playbook for the future.

Implementing tools such as vision-based monitoring and advanced automated positioning systems during current heavy-lift repairs and installations helps mitigate costs and weather-downtime risks today but more importantly provides the data to underpin tomorrow’s operations. Furthermore, by locking in heavy-lift and WTIV tonnage for multi-year campaigns today, operators can guarantee the logistical certainty needed to navigate the inevitable 2030s vessel-availability crunch.

At Breakbulk Europe 2026, a panel of industry leaders from dship Carriers, GEODIS and Peel Ports will be going head-to-head in a special project cargo outlook session, happening on the Breakbulk Live Stage on Tuesday, June 16 from 2:30pm to 3:15pm.

Top photo: Jumbo Offshore transports TPs for Taiwan's Yunlin offshore windfarm
Second: Matt Bowden, Cadeler