“The UK market (usually) is bigger, but this year and next there will be a race who installs more,” Giese told journalists during a visit to the company’s nacelle factory in Bremerhaven.

Only some 600MW of offshore wind capacity is operating in German waters now, compared to more than 3.6GW in the UK. But Germany is catching up somewhat.

“I expect that the whole (German) fleet of 3GW will be constructed” by the end of 2015, Giese said.

Senvion has 108 of its 5MW or 6MW offshore machines running in European waters, while another 53 turbines will be installed in 2014, Giese said.