At the start of February, Ørsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, announced a major scaling back of its operations, exiting wind markets in Portugal, Spain and Norway and cutting both its dividend and its 2030 target for the number of new installations. The announcement followed the firm’s shock decision last November to back out of two major wind projects in New Jersey. Last week, it agreed to sell stakes in four US onshore wind farms for around $300m.
But Ørsted’s troubles are hardly unique. In September 2023, the UK government’s offshore wind auction failed to secure a single project from developers, who argued that the government-guaranteed prices on offer were too low in the face of rising costs. Two months before that, Vattenfall pulled out of a major wind UK development for the same reason. And in February, the German energy giant RWE – which provides 15 per cent of the UK’s power – warned that without more money on offer, the UK’s next auction, opening this month, might just fail again.
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