Financial Times sponsored a conference today on the wind “industry,” running a headline: “Ørsted Shares Tumble After Company Ditches Two U.S. Wind Projects” with the kicker, “Danish developer’s deepening difficulties come as top BP executive says U.S. market is ‘broken.’”
The report reads: “The world’s largest offshore wind developer Ørsted has abandoned two important U.S. projects and announced a higher than expected write down of its portfolio, in a big blow to American efforts to develop the renewable energy. Shares in Ørsted fell 15% on Wednesday [Nov. 1] after the group recorded $4 billion of impairments, saying that it had ‘no choice’ but to stop work on two projects off the New Jersey coast. The offshore wind industry, which has been championed by governments as part of the answer to global warming, has been hit hard by supply chain disruptions, rising costs and higher interest rates.” They left out the fact that the wind isn’t blowing as much as they had planned.
The U.S. offshore wind industry was “fundamentally broken,” Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP’s head of low carbon energy, told the Financial Times conference today, warning that a “fundamental reset” was needed to help the nascent market grow. Ørsted reported it was “taking measures to support its capital structure,” such as rationalizing its portfolio. Mads Nipper, chief executive of Ørsted, said the global offshore industry had been hurt by a “perfect storm.” The pressure, he said, “is the same everywhere but it is nowhere near as profound as it is in the U.S. market.”
