Nysted Offshore Wind Farm near Gedser in Denmark is owned by Ørsted and built in two stages. The two stages were guaranteed a transfer price of 45 and 63 øre per kilowatt hour respectively in their first 12-15 years of life. Photo: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix
Ørsted drops U.S. projects
- Denmark’s energy company Ørsted has had to drop two large-scale offshore wind projects in the United States because it was not possible to get a good business out of them. Since the signing of the agreement on Ocean Wind 1 and 2, the Danish company has been overtaken by large increases in both materials and interest rates, and according to the trade association Green Power Denmark, several other companies are in the same situation. “Recently, we have seen lots of projects in the U.S. that have failed, and there have been tenders in Britain where no-one bid at all,” says Thomas Aarestrup Jensen, Director of Renewable Energy Production. He fears that similar problems may affect other offshore wind projects in our latitudes because the tender conditions have been focussed wrongly. “There has been a tendency to think more about how the treasury can be filled as quickly as possible, rather than creating jobs, growth and cheap green power,” he says.
In the spring, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities announced that an agreement has been signed for tendering for 6 gigawatts of wind capacity in the seas around Denmark. Here, it is a requirement that the state can buy 20 percent co-ownership of the projects, and then bidding rounds are carried out in which those who want to pay the most to use the land, win the right to build the wind turbines. /ritzau/ - Wednesday’s market was an unhappy one for Ørsted with a major slap in the face from investors, who did not welcome the announcement that several US projects are to be stopped and that a write-down of DKK 28 billion will result. Ørsted’s stock dipped 25.7 per cent – the biggest drop ever to $252.50 to its lowest level since the start of 2017. “Ørsted fills everything today. There is no focus on the Q3 results,” Mads Zink, chief trader at Danske Bank, told MarketWire. Ørsted also expects a provision of DKK 8-11 billion in the fourth quarter, and according to Mads Zink, this is precisely what is most in focus. “This creates a huge uncertainty about how we will see Ørsted in the future,” says Mads Zink. /Marketwire/