The offshore wind sector is projected to grow on a global scale. Henrik Andersen, CEO of Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems, the world's largest wind turbine maker, believes the promising offshore wind market has a long way to go to catch up with the onshore market, adding that it will be an interesting part of the global renewable energy in the next two decades. 

Data from Global Wind Energy Council shows that global wind energy industry installed 51.3 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity last year. The onshore wind market added 46.8 GW of new capacity while the offshore market added 4.49 GW.

Given that the market share of offshore wind is less than 10 percent, Andersen said that the offshore is just "in the reality of the start of it."

"There is still quite a long way before offshore really comes to the same volume as we have seen in the onshore part," he said, adding that it's super interesting to see the offshore wind market predicted to be an important part of "the whole journey of renewable energy in the coming 20 years."

China is the world's largest wind power market within onshore and offshore activities, and the ongoing Beijing Wind Energy 2019 Expo is very important in the renewable's calendar for manufacturers, developers and investors from all around the world. 

"It's wonderful to be here in Beijing. China is in many ways a leading market. It's the world's largest in renewable energy. It's nice to talk with the guys about what is happening, how do we get the grid parity in China after 2020, and how do we cope with that as part of that supply chain and value chain," Andersen commented.

Vestas is the largest foreign original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in China, however, the overall foreign OEM only makes up five percent of this very large market. Andersen sees no change of that condition in the short term.  

"There is a certain history, a certain way of doing very closely with domestic OEMs in China that has served China quite well," he told CGTN.

"But when we are now moving into a new grid parity system, that probably forces people to look more not necessarily only on the initial investment into the turbine, but the total cost of ownership of the turbine and the power plant of its expected lifetime," Andersen noted.

Meanwhile, the CEO shared how trade tariffs affect their business by saying, "The initial reaction is it will put a lot of pressure on our earnings because you will have to reroute, which means increase of transportation cost."

He is also worried about the ripple effect of trade tensions and additional tariffs, which has been affecting the whole supply chain.

"The truth of it is the whole global supply chain has been hit, not only as investors phenomenon, but also as all the parts of the industry. And that means every global industry player has seen some of the same effects to the supply chain," he stated.