Posted on 11/01/2023 12:51:29 PM PDT by Red Badger
Democrat President Joe Biden’s globalist green agenda has just been hit with a severe blow after the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer abandoned two major U.S. projects.
Danish wind energy company Orsted A/S announced it has pulled out of the projects due to supply chain and interest rate impacts and recorded impairment charges well above previous forecasts.
Orsted says it was forced to cease the development of the Ocean Wind 1 and 2 projects off the coast of New Jersey.
The news comes amid a wider downturn in the green energy industry.
As Slay News reported last week, several major automakers have just announced that they are scaling back production of expensive electric vehicles (EVs) amid declining consumer interest and slow sales.
In a seemingly coordinated move, Ford, Honda, and General Motors all announced significant rollbacks of EV production.
In a statement about the canceled wind farm projects, Orsted said:
“US offshore wind projects have experienced further negative developments from adverse impacts relating to supply chains, increased interest rates, and the lack of an OREC (Offshore Renewable Energy Certificate) adjustment on Sunrise Wind.
“Total impairments recognized in the interim financial report for the first nine months of 2023 amount to DKK 28.4 billion [$4 billion], and the majority of these (DKK 19.9 billion) relate to Ocean Wind 1,” Orsted stated.
This figure is much larger than the previously announced impairment in August on its U.S. portfolio of up to DKK 16 billion.
“This is a consequence of additional supplier delays further impacting the project schedule and leading to an additional significant project delay,” the company said.
Orsted CEO Mads Nipper said he was “extremely disappointed to announce that we are ceasing the development of Ocean Wind 1 and 2.”
“The significant adverse developments from supply chain challenges, leading to delays in the project schedule, and rising interest rates have led us to this decision, and we will now assess the best way to preserve value while we cease development of the projects,” he added.
Following the news, shares in the Denmark-listed green energy giant crashed as much as 22%.
Share prices fell to lows not seen in six years.
The move may not have been a surprise, however.
In August, Nipper warned that the projects were facing headwinds.
“The situation in U.S. offshore wind is severe,” Nipper asserted.
“We are still upholding a real option to walk away,” he told Bloomberg a few weeks later.
The Biden administration has touted offshore wind farms as an essential component of “decarbonizing” America’s energy grid.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Orsted has received upwards of 30% tax credits.
However, the tax credits are no longer enough as a financial crisis continues to brew in the offshore wind power industry.
Last week, Germany’s Siemens Energy crashed.
The crash came after the company warned its wind turbine business is grappling with quality issues and offshore ramp-up challenges.
In the solar industry, meanwhile, SolarEdge Technologies shares plunged about two weeks ago.
The drop in share prices came after the company warned that European demand is sliding.
For many of the giant wind machines, the main mechanism must not freeze. When they are not turning, good ol hydrocarbons, oil and natural gas, are used to keep the mechanisms from freezing when the temperature drops. I have also read that if the wind is blowing too much, the giant windmills cannot handle the speed. So not only is there no power if the wind does not blow, there is no power if the wind blows too much.
I study archaeology. We used to joke about future archeologists finding the Golden Arches of McDonald’s. There are so many thousands (millions?) of McDonald’s, what will future investigators think of all those arches.
Perhaps when they dig up all the giant wind turbines, they will laugh at the ridiculousness of using 17th century technology when we have thousands of years of hydrocarbons under our feet. We have only drilled a few miles into the Earth. Every other month there are ‘discoveries’ of vast new oil and natural gas deposits.
The crash came after the company warned its wind turbine business is grappling with quality issues and offshore ramp-up challenges.
“Last week”???
Siemens AG - that wind energy section of Siemens - crashed back in June 21-25 - losing about 1/3 of Siemens share price literally over a span of only two days.
Meanwhile Virginia just announced multibillion dollar windbag to spread the wealth around.
Don’t know if Biden has to give any money back, but if he does he owes a lot of it to the American public for his never-ending economic mess in most every area of life. He probably should be deported.
Wind & solar might be viable for limited usage in small projects where you don’t need very much power on a constant basis. A small wind turbine might be good for supplying light power to a tent in a remote area. A small unit could be made to withstand winds of very differing velocity,also.
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