That verdict is according to a snapshot poll of about 150 sector participants during the Windforce 2014 opening session in Bremen.

The offshore wind conference and fair starts today and ends Thursday.

Of those polled, 28% named financing as the biggest challenge, followed by 25%, who said e build-up of the accompanying electricity grid structures was the Nr. 1 challenge.

"A relatively young industry such as offshore wind energy that also is very capital intensive, of course reacts very sensitively to insecurities created in the political sphere," says Hildegard Müller, head of the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, the country's main energy lobby group.

"This