Europe’s offshore wind sector is dealing with interlinked issues—from evolving tender designs and technical development to site assessments and social acceptance—while a single project evaluation system that covers these dimensions is still missing.
WindSCORE (Sustainable Criteria and Overall Renewable Evaluation for Offshore Wind Energy) was launched in December 2025 to address this gap. Over the next three years, the EU project is developing a scientifically based 360° evaluation toolbox that combines economic, technical, sustainability-oriented, and social criteria to support investors and other stakeholders.
The project is led by Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems IWES, working with Fondation Open-C, SINTEF, Statnett, TÜV SÜD, Bio-Littoral, and Equinor. It is co-funded by PTJ/BMWE (Germany), RPL (France), and RCN (Norway) under the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP).
WindSCORE is designed as a 360° KPI toolbox intended to improve the structure and design of tender criteria and enable a holistic assessment of offshore wind farm projects—from tendering through implementation. The planned framework covers sustainability, technical innovation (including floating wind turbines), integration into energy systems and grids, and operational and maintenance efficiency. Social impacts such as regional value creation are also included, and the consortium expects the criteria and methods to support a draft industry standard.
Within the work programme, Fraunhofer IWES is responsible for site analysis, modelling electricity generation costs, and evaluating technical concepts, using a cost model and life-cycle simulations to assess technical and financial sustainability. SINTEF contributes to tool development aimed at supporting decision-making for industry and public authorities, while Statnett and Equinor add operational experience from power systems and offshore wind farms. Fondation Open-C assesses social sustainability through value-chain and local-content effects, and Bio-Littoral supports an ecological indicator covering impacts across marine compartments. TÜV SÜD is also targeting outcomes related to industry standards.
After completion, Fraunhofer IWES plans to validate the methods and the toolbox and further develop them toward market readiness.
