The continent’s offshore wind potential is emerging as one of the world’s largest sources of clean energy.
OLACDE and the Danish Energy Agency led an international seminar aimed at sharing technology, regulatory frameworks, and investment models with pioneering countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.
Latin America and the Caribbean are looking to the sea to accelerate the region’s energy transition. The Latin American and Caribbean Energy Organization (OLACDE), in partnership with the Government of Denmark—a global leader in offshore wind technology—held the international seminar “Offshore Wind Energy in Latin America and the Caribbean: Progress, Potential and Opportunities,” aimed at charting a roadmap for the development of this industry across the region.
Although offshore wind technology remains at an early stage of development in Latin America and the Caribbean, countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico have made significant progress in marine spatial planning, regulatory frameworks, and environmental impact assessment. “Latin America and the Caribbean have a multi-energy landscape, with a diverse range of technologies. The region has enormous potential to develop offshore wind as a strategic pillar of the energy transition,” said Andrés Rebolledo, Executive Secretary of OLACDE.
Denmark, a global pioneer in offshore wind energy, shared its industrial development model, centered on:
Regulatory certainty: Designing competitive auctions and predictable regulatory frameworks to attract private investment.
Value chains: Strengthening port infrastructure and developing local supply chains.
Spatial planning: Coordinating the use of marine areas to ensure that power generation can coexist with fisheries and marine conservation.
Simon Fløe Nielsen, Director of the Centre for Global Cooperation at the Danish Energy Agency, also emphasized that bilateral cooperation is essential to reducing costs and accelerating the deployment of large-scale projects in Latin American waters.
Regional perspectives: from government to academia
During the seminar, public-sector representatives from Colombia and Brazil outlined the role of governments in shaping decarbonization policies and fostering low-emission innovation. Meanwhile, Chilean academic representatives highlighted the importance of scientific research in offshore wind modeling and the mitigation of technical risks.
The technical panel brought together experts from the Danish Energy Agency, the Ministries of Mines and Energy of Brazil and Colombia, Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and OLACDE’s Strategic Advisory and Modeling team.
Through this partnership, OLACDE reaffirms its commitment to bringing together the public sector, academia, and private industry to transform the wind resources of the Caribbean and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts into bankable projects that drive economic development, strengthen energy security, and mobilize green investment.
