De Poorter, deputy director at Belgium’s GeoSea, which is working at Trianel’s Borkum West 2 project, speaks for many in expressing his surprise at the combustible state of Germany’s offshore sector. It was sparked in large part by a letter sent to the government last November by TenneT, the transmission system operator (TSO) for the North Sea.

Until then, many people in Europe had looked to the German model with envy.