Energy News Beat
US President Donald Trump paused new permits for offshore wind projects as one of his first acts in office. Although largely exposed and facing uncertainty, European industry players are keeping their cool.
Among his inaugural executive decrees signed off earlier this week, Trump temporarily suspended new offshore wind energy permits – while existing leases will be reviewed by the Secretary of the Interior to assess “the necessity of terminating or amending” them.
Immediately after Trump’s announcement, shares fell across a number of European companies that are developing – or supplying turbines for – offshore wind projects in the US.
“It’s a bad day for onshore and offshore wind”, summed up Wind Europe’s spokesperson Christoph Zipf, in comments to Euractiv.
This move comes at a difficult time for the battered offshore wind energy sector, which has been struggling with tighter margins, rising costs, and Chinese competition in recent years.
European sangfroid
Despite this, European wind developers have so far adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach, largely refraining from publicly commenting on Trump’s move.
Those contacted by Euractiv channelled cautious optimism, pointing to the long-term nature of offshore wind projects, and noting that the announcement was widely expected.
“We secured a lease for 40 years, until 2060”, said Vera Bücker, head of media relations at German energy utility RWE, about the company’s project off the coast of New York.
Trump’s decision “did not come as a surprise” Bücker added, noting that the company had already announced at the end of 2024 it would delay its investment in US offshore wind.
For Kelly Penot, stakeholder manager at Oceans Winds (OW), a joint venture owned by European utilities EDP Renewables and ENGIE, said she is confident that the company “will keep on finding a path forward in coordination with all relevant authorities.”
Similarly, a major French wind energy developer told Euractiv that the decree was not the worst-case scenario it had prepared for, and that the company had already chosen to scale back its projects in the US.
Developers will also take into consideration the US’s relative importance as a market.
By 2030, the US is anticipated to have just 23 GW of offshore wind deployed, compared to 78 GW in Europe, and 126 GW in Asia. This gap is set to widen even further by 2050, when Asia is expected to boast 613 GW of offshore wind.
A pivot back to Europe
With the US slowdown, attention is now shifting back to Europe.
While the uncertainty in the US will reduce investments in the country’s wind sector, according to Wind Europe’s Zipf it should also be “a chance for Europe to be clear on what it wants.”
Zipf says this week’s developments “might even attract investors“ to Europe.
Even wind turbine manufacturers are calling for caution. “Let sense prevail”, Henrik Andersen, CEO of Danish producer Vestas, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
According to Andersen, whose company business accounts for a third of the installment of wind turbines in the US, Trump’s climate retreat has been overblown.
“The world has never done a transition of this magnitude without hitting a couple of bumps on the road, and that’s what you are experiencing” now.
Speaking about the energy transition, Andersen said “if you look across the globe, somebody will take maybe a slower pace for a period of time,” but in Europe, he said, “it is actually happening”.
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The post European wind developers put on brave face after Trump’s offshore ban appeared first on Energy News Beat.
