The past few months have seen RWE issue a torrent of contracts for the €2bn ($2.6bn) Gwynt y Mor project, which will be the German utility’s third offshore wind farm off the coast of north Wales when construction is finished in 2014.

That strategy runs counter to other projects, such as Belgium’s Belwind, where Dutch marine contractor Van Oord was responsible for nearly all engineering, procurement and construction decisions.

“Bringing