Governing offshore wind: is an 'Asia-Pacific Model' emerging?

The Asia-Pacific region is emerging as central to the deployment of offshore wind power. Large scale offshore wind involves complex governance challenges, and governments can choose to centralize and streamline processes enabling the construction of offshore wind farms. We develop a framework for comparing site selection and consenting processes for offshore wind farms, and examine whether a more streamlined and centralized model of offshore wind governance is emerging in the major Asia-Pacific markets of Japan, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. We also examine whether policy targets and framework legislation are used in these markets, and whether renumeration schemes are being applied. We find limited evidence of convergence in some aspects of offshore wind governance, but that governance models in the region remain diverse. We suggest there remains scope for facilitating learning across different Asia-Pacific markets as governments work to ensure the governance of siting and consenting meets the needs of stakeholders, while enabling offshore wind supports rapid low carbon energy transition goals.

Key policy insights

•Deployment targets for offshore wind provide an important signal to developers about market potential, but targets need to be matched by the effective governance of siting and permitting.

•Centralization and streamlining of permitting processes can reduce complexity and risk for offshore wind developers.

•Governments in emerging Asia-Pacific offshore wind markets have adopted ambitious deployment targets, but siting processes are diverse and there is limited evidence of the streamlining of consenting processes.

•There is scope to enhance policy learning across Asia-Pacific offshore wind markets, while ensuring siting and consenting meet the needs of all stakeholders.