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Turbines far out at sea, turning strong, steady wind into electricity at vast scale. A contracted, capital-heavy generator: a multi-billion build, funded by project finance, selling generation under a CfD or long PPA at a price guaranteed for decades. Pick a real example below and trace it from the development through the model to a working returns model.
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Drag the sliders to see what earns the money: the capacity in megawatts, the power price (with the CfD / PPA strike behind it), and the capacity factor as the rotors spin.
Offshore wind is the generation layer: hundreds of turbines standing on the seabed, cabled to an offshore substation and brought ashore by a subsea export cable. The business is distinctive: the asset is capital-heavy (roughly £3–4.5m per MW, far above onshore), so most of the value is the multi-billion build. In return it sells generation (capacity × hours × capacity factor) under a CfD or long PPA that fixes the price at a strike, inflation-linked, for decades. So the revenue is contracted and price-insulated, the fuel is free, and the O&M, while higher than onshore, leaves a very wide margin. The capex is funded by project finance, a high slug of debt against the contracted offtake, which is why the unlevered return is modest but the levered, equity return is real. It scales: every new phase adds another long, contracted, capital-heavy generator at sea.
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See also the Offshore wind cash-flow simulator, a live model of contracted vs merchant revenue, and the Cash-flow & DCF model.