Norway Opens Its Doors to a Floating Wind Giant

Ming Yang Europe joins Norwegian Offshore Wind, targeting supply chain depth as Europe races toward its 2040 offshore targets

2 Jun 2026

Ming Yang Europe joined Norwegian Offshore Wind on 30 May 2026, placing one of the world's largest floating turbine manufacturers inside Europe's most established offshore wind industry body. The association counts around 300 companies across development, installation, and operations, and traces its founding to Haugesund, where the world's first floating turbine was commissioned in 2009.

Norway has set a target of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2040. Floating technology is central to reaching that figure, given the depth of many viable North Sea sites. Ming Yang's OceanX platform, which has already operated at commercial scale, is the main asset the company brings to the partnership. "Norway is the birthplace of floating offshore wind, and Norwegian Offshore Wind has built an industry community that we genuinely want to learn from and contribute to," said Horatio Evers, chief executive of Ming Yang Europe.

The membership comes at a pointed moment. At the North Sea Summit in Hamburg earlier this year, European governments committed to installing 15 gigawatts of offshore wind annually from 2031 to 2040, in pursuit of a broader 300-gigawatt target by mid-century. Supply chain analysts have warned that floating foundation capacity could become a bottleneck as early as 2029. "Our mission is to build world-leading supply chains for floating offshore wind, and that mission is inherently international," said Arvid Nesse, chief executive of Norwegian Offshore Wind.

For Ming Yang, the move extends a pattern. The company entered Germany's offshore wind association in 2025 and has outlined plans for local manufacturing, developer partnerships, and policy engagement across Europe. Political headwinds persist: the company faces project exclusions in Germany and remains barred from UK wind developments, reflecting broader scrutiny of Chinese technology firms in energy infrastructure. Norway's industry-led membership structure offers a route around some of those constraints.