Europe’s first generation of offshore wind farms is approaching end of life. Decommissioning will depend not on removal technology alone, but on aligning methodology, ecology, regulation and circularity before the first lift. Offshore wind decommissioning …
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Europe’s first generation of offshore wind farms is approaching end of life. Decommissioning will depend not on removal technology alone, but on aligning methodology, ecology, regulation and circularity before the first lift.
Offshore wind decommissioning is often described as reverse installation. While this serves as a practical baseline for a lifting plan, it inadequately reflects the complexity of the upcoming challenge.
Installation works toward one clear outcome: a functioning wind farm. Decommissioning starts with several legitimate options. Management of the assets encompasses several pathways: total removal, partial retention, repurposing, refurbishing, or material recycling. Foundations can be extracted or cut below the seabed; cables and scour protection may be recovered or, where evidence and regulation allow, left in place. Each choice changes the vessel campaign, ecological impact, port requirements and value of recovered materials.
Why Early Coordination Across the Value Chain
Belgium offers an early indication of the challenges other mature offshore wind markets will soon face. A 2024 study commissioned by FPS Economy[1] projected that the country’s existing 2.26 GW offshore fleet would be decommissioned between 2034 and 2045. This broad timeframe underscores the operational volatility of the process, where vessel availability, suitable weather windows, asset condition and the selected removal strategy heavily impact both timing and cost.
This inherent uncertainty is a reason to prepare jointly. The entire value chain must operate as an interconnected system; therefore, effective planning depends on timely information being shared across the entire chain. Operators rely on inspection data, while contractors need a clear view of the project pipeline. Ports must be able to anticipate which components will arrive, when and in what condition, allowing recyclers to reserve or build capacity based on reliable volume and specification data. Regulators, meanwhile, need sufficient evidence to assess whether the proposed method will deliver the intended environmental outcome.
If these parties plan separately, risk and cost simply move from one link in the chain to another.
Environmental Responsibility Is Site-Specific
The environmental debates are often reduced to two extremes: remove everything or leave nature entirely undisturbed. In practice, responsible environmental management requires nuanced, context-specific decisions.
Offshore structures illustrate this complexity. By introducing hard substrates where none may previously have existed, foundations and scour protection can gradually transform the surrounding ecosystem into an artificial reef. Removing them may therefore destroy newly established habitats, whereas retaining them means accepting responsibility for their deterioration and ensuring that they neither become a source of pollution or danger nor obstruct future plans for the area. A defensible decommissioning strategy must balance the ecological value that has emerged against the long-term consequences of leaving the structures in place. This assessment should consider the original seabed habitat as well as the future use of the area, including the potential repowering of the wind farm.
Stakeholder discussions in Belgium within the OWiDEx project[2] -led by POM West-Vlaanderen[3], with RBINS[4] contributing as a partner- highlight the importance of considering local context. For the existing eastern wind-farm zone, one option explored was a reset scenario, taking into account its dynamic sandy habitat and possible future repowering. Under this scenario, structures would be removed as fa as technically feasible to prepare the area for its next use.
Ultimately, a defensible decommissioning strategy should be guided not by a general preference for removal or retention, but by site-specific ecological evidence, long-term risks and the future use of the area.
Circularity Begins Before Material Reaches the Quay
Offshore wind turbines contain large volumes of materials with established recycling routes, including steel, cast iron, aluminium and copper. They also contain composites and, in some designs, permanent magnets with critical rare-earth elements, for which recovery routes are less mature or not yet widely available at industrial scale.
A circular strategy should follow the waste hierarchy: extend life where possible, reuse where credible, recycle at the highest feasible value, and minimise low-value recovery or disposal. But circularity can be lost through operational choices. Damage can eliminate reuse, mixed streams lose value, and offshore cutting decisions determine processing options onshore.
According to modelling carried out by Sirris[5] as part of the OWiDEx project, revenue from material resale revenues would amount about 10% of the projected removal costs. The conclusion is clear: circularity can recover value; it will not finance decommissioning on its own.
Future wind farms can improve this equation. Design for disassembly, modularity, accessible material data or passports and recoverable connections should be considered at procurement stage, not twenty-five years later.
Regulation Needs Evidence, Not Last-Minute Interpretation
Decommissioning crosses concession and permit conditions, marine environmental law, safety rules, waste legislation and rules for cross-border material movements. It also raises a simple question: when does a component intended for reuse remain a product, and when does it become waste?
Ambiguity becomes expensive offshore. Unclear removal depths, responsibilities for retained structures or acceptance criteria for recovered materials can delay permits, contracts and investment in processing capacity. Predictability is essential across the entire value chain. Contractors cannot assess and manage risk effectively when removal depths or residual liabilities remain open to interpretation. Ports and processors are unlikely to reserve space or invest in capacity while timelines, volumes and material status remain unclear.
These interfaces must be clarified before final decommissioning plans are submitted. Shared terminology, transparent criteria and material traceability can turn regulation into a planning framework rather than a late-stage constraint.
Collaboration Is the Infrastructure the Sector Needs Most
No single organisation controls the full decommissioning chain. That makes collaboration more than good stakeholder management; it is an operational requirement.
Belgium’s experience shows the value of bringing operators, contractors, ports, researchers, recyclers and public authorities into the same process. Working across the chain brings conflicting assumptions and gaps in evidence to the surface early, while opening the door to more coordinated planning. Neighbouring campaigns, for example, could improve vessel use, transport and common tooling. Forecasts of material volumes could give recyclers confidence to invest, while shared scenarios would help anticipate infrastructure needs and organize the flow of components through ports.
Testing and demonstration infrastructure has a focused role in this preparation. Promising methods for monopile extraction, subsea cutting, inspection, robotics and material treatment must move from controlled trials to repeatable performance in representative offshore conditions.
A staged testing environment such as Blue Accelerator[6] in the Belgian part of the North Sea can help close that gap. Testing can begin at the Tower, where a nearshore monopile provides a fixed setting for developing monitoring and inspection solutions. It can then move further offshore through the autonomous Buoy, which supports metocean measurements and remote trials where fixed power and data connections are unavailable. The planned floating Platform extends this progression into an operational wind farm, creating scope for larger-scale material trials.
Generally, coordinated testing and demonstration can bridge the gap between research and practice, supporting innovation beyond the needs of any single project.
Decommissioning will not become routine when the biggest crane arrives. It will become routine when the chain can make difficult choices early, support them with evidence and execute them as one coordinated operation.
[1] https://economie.fgov.be/sites/default/files/Files/Energy/Belgium-Offshore-Wind-Farms-Decommissioning-Costs-Project.pdf
[2] https://www.pomwvl.be/over-ons/onze-projecten/offshore-wind-decommissioning-expertise-centrum-owidex
[4] https://www.naturalsciences.be/en
[5] www.sirris.be