Eni Offshore Wind Initiatives for 2025: Key Projects, Strategies and Partnerships

Eni’s Floating Wind Gambit: From Portfolio Building to Technological Commitment

Italian energy major Eni is navigating the energy transition with a dual strategy, balancing its legacy hydrocarbon business with an aggressive push into renewables. A granular analysis of its activities reveals a distinct and rapidly maturing strategy in one of the most promising clean-tech sectors: floating offshore wind. Through its subsidiary Plenitude and joint venture Vårgrønn, Eni has moved from a phase of broad market entry to one of deep, technologically-focused project execution, positioning itself as a potential leader in unlocking deep-water wind resources.

Industry Adoption: A Shift from Exploration to Execution

An analysis of Eni’s offshore wind strategy reveals a clear inflection point between 2024 and 2025. The period from 2021 to 2024 was characterized by broad, exploratory portfolio-building. Eni, through Plenitude and Vårgrønn, cast a wide net, establishing partnerships to secure development rights across key European markets: Italy (with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners for 2 GW), Spain (with BlueFloat Energy and Sener), and Ireland (with Energia Group for 1.8 GW). This phase included a technology-scouting investment in EnerOcean’s W2Power concept in 2022, signaling an early interest in the technical solutions required for floating wind. The variety of these early-stage commitments indicates a strategy to gain a foothold in multiple emerging markets without committing to a single technological pathway.

Beginning in 2025, the strategy pivots sharply towards execution and technological specification. The partnerships have become more concrete and project-focused. The March 2025 agreement between Eni’s subsidiary Saipem and Divento Energia is not just a collaboration; it explicitly names Saipem’s proprietary STAR 1 floating technology for the 252 MW 7 Seas Med project. This represents a move from a general development agreement to a specific, technology-driven execution plan. Similarly, the Cenos project in Scotland, co-developed with Flotation Energy, is now detailed as a massive 1 GW+ plan using up to 95 next-generation turbines (15-21 MW each). This demonstrates a new level of commercial and technical confidence, moving beyond securing acreage to deploying specific, large-scale technology. This shift from a diverse portfolio of options to a narrower set of gigawatt-scale projects underpinned by chosen technologies signals that Eni believes the floating wind market is transitioning from demonstration to commercial scaling.

Investment: Fueling the Renewable Transition

Eni’s investment activity underscores its dual strategy, with significant capital flowing into both legacy energy security and its renewable energy subsidiary, Plenitude. The 2025 sale of a 20% stake in Plenitude to Ares Management for $2.3 billion was a pivotal move, unlocking substantial capital specifically to fuel the growth of its renewables portfolio, including its ambitious offshore wind projects. This divestment provides the financial firepower needed to advance capital-intensive developments. While Eni continues to make multi-billion Euro investments in North African energy security, the strategic financing of Plenitude and targeted funding for projects like the Livorno biorefinery demonstrates a clear, parallel commitment to its decarbonization goals. Earlier investments, like the 2021 acquisition of a stake in the fixed-bottom Dogger Bank C project, have now been superseded by a focus on floating technology, as evidenced by the investment in EnerOcean and the capital being funneled into Plenitude’s floating project pipeline.

Table: Eni’s Strategic Investments (2021-2025)

Partnerships: The Cornerstone of a Gigawatt-Scale Strategy

Eni’s strategy is fundamentally reliant on a sophisticated network of partnerships that has evolved significantly over time. The 2021-2024 period was defined by the formation of high-level joint ventures to enter new markets, such as the Vårgrønn expansion with HitecVision and broad development agreements with CIP in Italy and BlueFloat/Sener in Spain. These partnerships secured access and development pipelines.

The post-2024 era shows a deepening of these relationships toward tangible outcomes. The Italian partnership with CIP matured into the formally launched “Divento” entity in September 2024, targeting a massive 3 GW of floating projects. More critically, the March 2025 agreement brought in Saipem as a technology and construction partner for a specific Divento project, layering execution capability onto the development framework. In Scotland, the Vårgrønn-Flotation Energy partnership progressed from securing exclusivity in 2023 to advancing the 1 GW+ Cenos project in 2025. These moves illustrate a shift from partnership for market access to partnership for project delivery and technological deployment.

Table: Eni’s Key Partnerships (2022-2025)

Geography: Consolidating Around Key Hubs

Eni’s geographic focus has evolved from widespread market entry to the consolidation of strategic regional hubs. Between 2021 and 2024, the company established a presence across a broad swathe of Europe, securing project pipelines in the UK, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Norway. This was a land-grab phase, ensuring Eni was positioned to capitalize on emerging offshore wind regulations and incentives across the continent.

From 2025 onwards, the activity has concentrated, with two regions emerging as clear priorities for floating wind: Scotland and Italy. Scotland is home to the GreenVolt/Cenos project, which at over 1 GW is set to be one of the world’s largest floating wind farms and serves the dual purpose of powering the grid and decarbonizing North Sea oil and gas operations. Italy has become the nexus of Eni’s Mediterranean ambitions, reinforced by the formal launch of the 3 GW Divento development platform and the selection of a specific project (7 Seas Med) for deployment with Saipem’s technology. The agreement to offtake power from Albania further solidifies this Mediterranean focus. This geographic consolidation suggests Eni is moving past exploration and is now committing significant resources to building out a leadership position in regions with deep waters and strong governmental support for floating wind.

Technology Maturity: From Scouting to Scaling

The data reveals a clear progression in the maturity of Eni’s approach to floating wind technology. The 2021-2024 period was one of assessment and early-stage bets. The 2022 investment in EnerOcean’s W2Power platform was a clear signal of Eni’s interest in novel floating concepts, but it was an investment in a developer, not a commitment to deploy the technology at scale. The major partnerships formed during this time were for large but still-conceptual project pipelines, without specific technologies being named.

The period from 2024 into 2025 marks the transition to commercial-scale deployment and technological validation. The key event is the March 2025 Saipem agreement, which locks in the STAR 1 semi-submersible technology for the 7 Seas Med project. This moves STAR 1 from a proprietary design to the chosen foundation for a commercial project, a critical step towards bankability and scaling. Furthermore, the Green Volt project receiving planning approval in April 2024 for 560 MW and its continued development as the larger Cenos project demonstrates that floating wind is moving beyond pilot phases. The plan to use next-generation 15-21 MW turbines on these platforms indicates that Eni and its partners are confident in scaling up both the foundations and the power generation hardware, signaling a major validation point for the entire floating wind value chain.

Table: Eni’s Floating Offshore Wind SWOT Analysis

Forward-Looking Insights: The Year of Execution

The data from 2025 signals that Eni is past the point of announcing ambitions and is now entering a critical year of execution for its floating offshore wind strategy. The key signal to watch is the progression of its cornerstone projects—Cenos in Scotland and the 7 Seas Med project in Italy—towards a final investment decision (FID). Securing project financing for these ventures will be the ultimate validation of their commercial viability.

The Saipem partnership is the most significant bellwether. The successful deployment of the STAR 1 technology at the 7 Seas Med project will not only de-risk Eni’s Italian pipeline but could also establish STAR 1 as a leading European floating platform design, creating immense value for Eni’s subsidiary. Conversely, any delays or technical challenges will be a major setback. The capital infusion from the Ares deal has armed Plenitude with the necessary funds; the market will now be watching to see how efficiently that capital is converted into steel in the water. While Eni’s legacy business continues to command massive investment, the momentum in its clean energy division is clearly and overwhelmingly concentrated on making floating offshore wind a commercial reality at scale.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main shift in Eni’s floating wind strategy discussed in the article?
The main shift is from a broad, exploratory phase of building a portfolio across multiple European markets (2021-2024) to a focused execution phase starting in 2025. This new phase involves developing specific, gigawatt-scale projects with committed technologies, moving from securing market access to deploying large-scale hardware.

How is Eni funding its expensive floating wind projects?
A key financial move was the sale of a 20% stake in its renewables subsidiary, Plenitude, to Ares Management in 2025 for $2.3 billion. This strategic divestment provides dedicated capital specifically to fuel the growth of its renewable energy pipeline, including its capital-intensive floating wind developments.

Is Eni abandoning its traditional oil and gas business for renewables?
No, the article clearly states Eni is pursuing a “dual strategy.” While aggressively expanding its renewables portfolio through Plenitude, it is also making parallel multi-billion Euro investments in its legacy hydrocarbon business, such as the €8 billion investment in Libya, to maintain energy security.

Which specific technology is Eni betting on for its floating wind projects in Italy?
For its Italian projects, Eni is now committing to a specific technology from its subsidiary, Saipem. The agreement for the 252 MW 7 Seas Med project explicitly names Saipem’s proprietary STAR 1 floating technology, marking a move from technology scouting to deploying a chosen platform at a commercial scale.

What are the two most important regions for Eni’s floating wind strategy now?
Eni’s geographic focus for floating wind has consolidated around two key hubs: Scotland and Italy. Scotland is home to the 1 GW+ Cenos project, while Italy has become the nexus of its Mediterranean ambitions with the 3 GW Divento development platform and the selection of the 7 Seas Med project for initial deployment.

Want strategic insights like this on your target company or market?

Build clean tech reports in minutes — not days — with real data on partnerships, commercial activities, sustainability strategies, and emerging trends.