But it may be hindering its own progress towards cost-competitiveness by choosing ever-larger monopile foundation designs as projects move further from shore to harness richer, steadier winds.

A few years ago, monopiles, which underpin about three quarters of the world’s offshore wind farms, looked likely to be left in the shallows with many deeper-water designs too big to be handled by the current armada of installation vessels and, being all-steel, prohibitively expensive to fabricate.

Yet