Analyzing the emerging offshore wind power market technologies

The complex interaction between science and technology provide a great need to forecast emerging technologies and tools for strategic R&D management. In case of emerging technologies use of science and patent indicators have been used on the forecasting studies. This paper aims to analyze the development of wind energy technologies. Research material is based on the patents and financial data of the leading offshore wind industry actors. In this paper, we firstly define the most interesting wind energy technologies based on literature review, expert analysis, and patent data. The future of selected technologies is further analyzed utilizing the patent citation data from the four leading actors in the offshore wind energy markets. The preliminary results of the analysis reveal quite a big difference in the patenting activity between the actors. The results reveal that the emerging industry is in the growing stage of the evolution.