Ørsted, a major player in the offshore wind development sector, has decided to pull the plug on its Ocean Wind 1 and Ocean Wind 2 projects off the coast of New Jersey. Citing
“escalated financial difficulties and supply chain issues,”
Ørsted’s decision brings to light the tumultuous waters that renewable energy projects are now starting to regularly encounter.
“Macroeconomic factors have changed dramatically over a short period of time, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks impacting our long-term capital investments,”
said David Hardy, group executive vice president and CEO Americas at Ørsted. This statement reflects the vulnerability of such grandiose renewable projects to economic fluctuations and logistical nightmares.
The cancellation of these projects is not just a setback for Ørsted but also dents the ambitious renewable energy goals of the United States. It came shortly after the Biden administration announced the final approval of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which was touted as a significant milestone in the U.S. renewable energy landscape.
Local officials and communities in New Jersey, who had been at loggerheads with Ørsted and other state and federal agencies, welcomed this decision. They had been voicing their concerns and opposition against the potential impacts of the Ocean Wind 1 project.
“This is a great day for the people and businesses of Cape May County,”
said Len Desiderio, director of the Cape May County Board of Commissioners, reflecting the relief and vindication felt by the local communities.
Despite this setback, Ørsted continues to express its commitment to the U.S. renewable energy market.
“We remain committed to the U.S. renewable energy market, building clean power that will create jobs across technologies and states from the Northeast to Texas,”
Hardy said. However, the abandonment of the New Jersey projects raises questions about the feasibility and practicality of such commitments in the face of economic and logistical uncertainties.
Ørsted’s decision to abandon its wind projects off New Jersey is a stark reminder of the unpredictable and challenging nature of renewable energy projects. It underscores the need for a more realistic and pragmatic approach towards planning and executing all energy projects, putting engineering and economics ahead of political dictates, taking into consideration the various economic, logistical, and community-related factors that can impact their success.
Source: https://www.nationalfisherman.com/mid-atlantic/-rsted-gives-up-on-new-jersey-wind-projects
Save the whales.
save our money
Remember those sanity days when Greenpeace et al would care about wildlife? Now, they just hoover up the blobs green con cash, it pays better
No!
Because Greenpeace & WWF never did care about wildlife unless they could get a good picture of desperation that increases people’s donations.
Even Audubon which did care about wildlife for a few decades currently forgets all about the eco-disasters that EVs, wind and solar really are.
Patrick Moore testifies about this situation repeatedly.
Greenpeace always did whatever their Soviet / Russian masters told them to do.
Yeah. One of these days the shadow finances are going to have to be traced back, through the various oligarch’s and wealthy philanthropists, back to their source. The green blob is being financed by those without our best interests in mind.
“Macroeconomic factors have changed dramatically over a short period of time, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks impacting our long-term capital investments,”
The big joke is that all these economic problems impacting the renewables, including high fossil fuel prices for back-up power were created by Gov Climate Policy stupidity.
It’s all Water under the Wind Turbine now
One down, two to go. Or is it more?
Couldn’t have happened to a more corrupt bunch of rent seekers.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
The only problem with this is that NJ voters who vote for the Democrat cronies of the “renewable energy” scam “crony capitalists” get to keep their ocean view without the bird chopping eyesores. They don’t deserve the unobstructed view.
Maybe some Dem politicians will finally undersand the public doesn’t like the green agenda. I suspect those who for the Dems voted for other reasons- mostly freebies.
Do not hold your breath.
The problem in NJ is that southern Jersey – ie., Cape May – is largely Red but northern jersey is more densely populated and deep blue – and very corrupt. Starting at roughly Pt. Pleasant and moving south, the state is increasingly red.
“northern jersey is more densely populated and deep blue – and very corrupt.”
Corrupt indeed. Have seen this in healthcare in NJ, mostly private practice setting, were some physicians were getting kickbacks referring patients to imaging centers.
I had a peripheral involvement with Rayscam investigation.
“We remain committed to the U.S. renewable energy market, building clean power that will create jobs”
The inevitable positive spin on jobs. The jobs in the construction of the complex, actually an addition to its cost; and its maintenance and repair, another expense. Logically it follows that the more people hired to build and maintain the operation, the greater the benefit. This is the same recipe as followed in academia–more professors teaching fewer classes, more administrators and more researchers and their assistants are a net benefit. Better government is assured by more agencies and more bureaucrats to staff them. More jobs for neophyte attorneys. BMW i4 sales go up as do commissions to the salesmen.
If we get to spend our own money- that will also create jobs- but different jobs- jobs producing goods and services WE want. And since we’re fussier than the government when spending money, it’ll be better for the economy- as the producers will be under pressure- with competitive markets.
World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm-Developer Abandons Two Major US Projects As Renewable Bust Eruptshttps://www.zerohedge.com/markets/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm-developer-abandons-two-major-us-projects-renewable-bust
“The renewable energy bubble is in meltdown. ”
Now, about that $650 TRILLION derivative 600 pound gorilla in the room…. Time for banking regulation, Glass-Steagall immediately. 2008 required $28 TRILLION government bailouts – this will need at least $100 TRILLION. Going to war anywhere will only accelerate the kinetics, especially if Oil hits $200pbl.
You well know that “$100 TRILLION” is just an estimate. The precise, accurate number is “$100 bazillion jillion.”
Where the heck is my “fair share”?
This is just repositioning to get better leverage for price increases! As the T-800 states; “I’ll be back!” The bloody wind whacking industry has many more things in common with the fictional Terminator, but primarily it just kills wildlife and impoverishes humans!
Floating offshore con artists can return with gold bars for closing the deal later when the coast is clear.
Not price increases, federally guaranteed loans that will never be paid off. Just tack a few more $billion on the economy destroying national debt.
World’s Largest Offshore Wind System Developer Abandons Two Major US Projects as Wind/Solar Bust Continues
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/world-s-largest-offshore-wind-system-developer-abandons-two-major
BY TYLER DURDEN
EXCERPT
President Biden’s ‘offshore wind fantasy’ is evaporating, as the world’s largest offshore wind system developer, Oersted, a Danish company, abandoned two major US projects, due to:
1) supply chain disruptions and delays (lack of available specialized ships),
2) high interest rates,
3) high inflation,
4) high energy, materials and labor costs.
Oersted recorded impairment charges well above previous forecasts.
Orsted A/S announced, “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 Certificates) adjustment for Sunrise Wind, and the Ocean Wind 1 and 2 projects.
“OREC adjustment” involves being awarded “bonus” subsidies of the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA.
Oersted wants Biden to ignore/waive the domestic-content requirements of IRA, so Europe would receive “OREC bonus” subsidies to create European jobs, and to build European factories, ports, cranes, specialized ships, etc., for manufacturing and erecting wind turbines to increase EU wind turbine exports to the US, UK, etc., for decades.
Oersted said, “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, a New Jersey State project.”
This amount is much larger than the previously announced impairment in August on its US portfolio of up to DKK 16 billion ($2.6 billion).
US/UK 66,000 MW OF OFFSHORE WIND BY 2030; AN EXPENSIVE FANTASY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/biden-30-000-mw-of-offshore-wind-systems-by-2030-a-total-fantasy
The wind, solar, battery bubble is in meltdown mode. This is not a surprise, because, the EIA makes LCOE evaluations of wind and solar, which exclude major LCOE items, regarding:
Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement and very expensive battery system storage
A fleet of quick-reacting power plants for counteracting/balancing the variable output of wind/solar
Additional power plants for making up the electricity shortfall during low wind/solar conditions
Output curtailments during high wind/solar conditions, i.e., paying owners not to produce what they could have produced
Such EIA deceptions led to a national delusion wind and solar are competitive with fossil fuels, which is far from reality.
Wind and solar would not exist without at least 50% subsidies, plus above freebies
Good news for the whales, and seabirds and fisheries, and tourism
MORE CANCELLATIONS ARE COMING
New York State had signed contracts with EU big wind companies for four offshore wind projects
Sometime later, the companies were trying to coerce an additional $25.35 billion (per Wind Watch) from New York ratepayers and taxpayers over at least 20 years, because they had bid at lower prices than they should have.
New York State denied the request on October 12, 2023; “a deal is a deal”, said the Commissioner
Owners want a return on investment of at least 10%/y, if bank loans for risky projects are 6.5%/y.
The 3.5% is a minimum for all the years of hassles of designing, building, erecting, and paperwork of a project
Below contract prices, paid by Utilities to owners, are after a 50% reduction, due to US subsidies provided, per various laws, by the US Treasury to the owners. See Items 4 and 6
Oersted, Denmark, Sunrise wind, contracted at $110.37/MWh, contractor needs $139.99/MWh, a 27% increase
Equinor, Norway, Empire 1 wind, contracted at $118.38/MWh, contractor needs $159.64/MWh, a 35% increase
Equinor, Norway, Empire 2 wind, contracted at $107.50/MWh, contractor needs $177.84/MWh, a 66% increase
Equinor, Norway, Beacon Wind, contracted at $118.00/MWh, contractor needs $190.82/MWh, a 62% increase
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/liars-lies-exposed-as-wind-electricity-price-increases-by-66-wake
Statistics could be used to convert those numbers into proof of corrupt project bidding. All 4 vendors were within 10% but the man is wrong?
“Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE, also called Levelized Energy Cost or LEC) is a cost of generating energy (usually electricity) for a particular system.”
1) supply chain disruptions and delays (lack of available specialized ships),
2) high interest rates,
3) high inflation,
4) high energy, materials and labor costs.
So, Biden’s fantasy was killed by Bidenomics. How apt.
Orsted gives up on New Jersey Wind Projects. YES!!! +97They also took a $4 billion impairment charge at the same time. Massive financial hit.
Most likely in preparation to a markedly better deal, for the company, than the one for which they were publically haggling.
Are there any wind turbines off the west coast? If not, why not? Just curious.
I was going to say that west coast wind is not as great as east coast wind but then I found this map, so it seems there should be more west coast wind projects.
?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2
East Coast has shallow continental shelf. No shelf for west coast. As a result, cost of installation much higher for west cosst.
Thanks
I think the East Coast has more wind from it’s proximity to DC
It is amazing how winds, and capacity factors, and service lifetimes, etc., increase, when government subsidies are increasing.
It is also amazing wind systems need more and more “forever-temporary” government subsidies, with the wind source being for free.
It likely has to do with market-ignorant bureaucratic GOVERNMENTS doing the mandating and developing
The continental shelf is a lot steeper off the west coast compared to the east coast.
Off the west coast, water gets deep, fast.
More active seismically also
I believe there are – or in development, floating wind turbines? I saw something about these- perhaps only proposed off the UK. Maybe only in someone’s imagination?
Because of the deeper sea off the W coast, the UFO community think there may be a UFO “happy place” near the islands off CA. I follow that community, having seen the famous Hudson Valley UFO, in ’83.
No but as far as I’m aware they’re still mostly at the proposal stage; very few if any prototypes even. The exception is the Hibiki wind turbine barge which has been constructed as a proof-of-concept and is undergoing tests off Japan’s coast. More information needed really.
This study published March 2023 said floating offshore wind farms (FOWTs) comprised 0.2% of total offshore WFs
S Wang et al ‘A comparison study of power performance and extreme load effects of large 10 – MW offshore wind turbines’
https://doi.org/10.1049/rpg2.12721/
Gavin Newsom is not stopping west coast offshore wind development. In fact he has doubled down and is visiting with his Chinese government buddies this week to discuss production.
I did read very recently, somewhere, that Newsom announced major off shore wind project plans.
Build on the subducting plate or immediately above on the plate it is subducting under?
California has a number of rather severe laws protecting sea otters, whales, some fish and sea birds.
Actually a lot of California near shore waters are quite shallow and I forgot to mention disturbing the kelp is a heinous crime in California.
A) navigating California’s wildlife laws are major minefields
B) I doubt any wind turbine manufacturer wants to test their wind turbines with California subduction.
C) The inshore waters are likely too shallow for erecting an offshore wind farm while disturbing the kelp or Pismo clam beds is illegal.
Well, CA can always import from nearby states power produced from fossil fuels. 🙂
I presume state officials don’t like to mention that.
….impacting our long-term capital investments,”
_______________________________________
Rent seeking boondoggles
“For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
“We remain committed to the U.S. renewable energy market, building clean power that will create jobs across technologies and states from the Northeast to Texas,”
Just as soon as we can get these pesky tenders repriced with guaranteed returns
“We remain committed to the U.S. renewable energy market, building clean power that will create jobs across technologies and states from the Northeast to Texas,”
That’s the vaporous high-pressure ad, based on pure wishful thinking and the largely missing investigations of the real costs of ‘renewable’ energy nationwide of some of our bamboozled elected officials. Such blowhards should be required to ante up a good fraction of their net worth before trying to commit the rest of us to buying into such an untested scheme.
https://www.energylivenews.com/2023/11/01/eye-ce-melts-climate-change-threatens-eye-health/
Yet more garbage from the blob – this asylum is definitely run by the inmates
They also have the titty lip out in the UK demanding a 70% uplift in strike price, otherwise they’re taking their ball in and not building any more useless windplagues – good I say, bugger off
But you know in your heart that the UK government will give in, as soon as they think up a good press release.
Thinking through the follow-on issues, Net Zero by 2050 is dead. We simply cannot build the generation capacity fast enough to meet the need. We would need a wind farm a week to mee the needs and we can’t build one a year at the current pace. Thankfully!
But also out of reach are such fantasies as E-Fuels. This approach was to use “excess” wind and solar power to make Hydrogen and convert it into hydrocarbon fuels. Doable, definitely, but not without issues. Such as the fact that chemical processes must be continuous, but the power for electrolysis is even less reliable than grid wind power as it is the excess power generated when the wind blows too much for the grid to handle. You simply cannot operate electrolyzers intermittently. And the rest of the E-Fuel process is absolutely a continuous process as well.
The next domino to fall will be wind farms themselves as it becomes obvious to the useful idiots that the environmental impact of wind turbines is far more than the benefits. Bird Kills alone should have shut them down. Rock Creek I & II have double the land area use a 72 acres per MW capacity as what is stated for well-sited turbines. So, the area required for additional wind power capacity will only get worse, not better. More land used, more impacts to the environment. Damn the eagles. They are expendable when you are trying to “Save The Planet”, or more accurately, Destroy the US Economy.
“This approach was to use “excess” wind and solar power to make Hydrogen and convert it into hydrocarbon fuels.”
I think “hydrocarbon” is the wrong idea.
Oh, I thought NJ Spartacus politicos would save the day and stick it to the ratepayers and taxpayers. I guess the Superstorm Sandy spin team was off on vacation or did not receive enough side payments in gold bars.
If it’s wind you want have a Vindaloo.
Simple.
That’s good start..
In other news a Russian volcano recently erupted. The Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula erupted sending ash into the atmosphere 8 miles high.
A volcanic eruption on the Kamchatka in late 2020 and disrupted the polar vortex a couple of months later creating havoc in Texas.
“…the cheapness of renewables was always going to be a transient phenomenon, owing to the specific economic conditions of the 2010s. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the ‘levelised cost of electricity (LCOE)’ of newly commissioned, utility-scale wind power fell by 60 per cent between 2010 and 2021.
But as the Financial Times notes, the falling costs were a product not just of maturing technologies. They were also a product of the period of quantitative easing and ultra-low interest rates that prevailed after the financial crisis of 2008″.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/01/why-wind-power-wont-cut-our-energy-bills/
Just like the climate, the economic circumstances also change.
With the greens, they always seem to be owed something [usually for nothing].
Story tip
https://electroverse.info/peak-of-solar-cycle-25-is-fast-approaching/
Like a scene from Game of Thrones, winter is coming, its army will conquer and enslave mankind
https://electroverse.info/records-slain-across-u-s-cold-vancouver-cooling-antarctica/
“an explosive peak in solar activity.”
That will not affect the Earth in any way because Carbon dioxide regulates Earthly temperatures – h/t IPCC. Amazingly, many believe that nonsense.
“Moving forward”
Christmas is coming
Oh dear, what a shame, never mind!
RIP WInsor Davies
I guess they will have to focus their efforts on more (unprofitable) projects in the UK and the continent.
But wind is supposed to be the cheapest so why can’t they make money? Is the narrative collapsing under the weight of reality?
Story Tip
She had Gaia on her side, or so she thinks, but the judge didn’t think so.
XR founder convicted after four-year legal saga
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67288289
8 other activists that sprayed a bank with fake blood were acquitted, and this article mentions a possible suspended sentence. No wonder these morons act like this in court – they have reason to believe that the law doesn’t apply to them. It’s getting beyond a joke.
The only way offshore wind moves forward in the US is for the federal government to establish an agency called the Central Renewable Energy Power Authority (CREPA) which directly funds and manages the development of all forms of wind & solar energy in the US, including the necessary additional transmission capacity and the grid-scale battery backup facilities. (CREPA ….. the acronym has a ring to it.)
New Jersey Governor Murphy is having fit over it
None of which were predicted by any economic model.
Bull manure.
Developers looked at their awful 20-y spreadsheets, with a negative internal rate of return, IRR, after all subsidies are applied.
I have such spreadsheets in my files; about 25 columns by about 100 rows
All I have to do is adjust inputs, and boom, there is the IRR %
Every major investment adviser of multi-millionaires clients looking for tax shelters. has such spreadsheets of wind, solar, batteries, etc.
“Macroeconomic factors have changed dramatically over a short period of time, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks impacting our long-term capital investments,”
— David Hardy, group executive vice president and CEO Americas at Ørsted.
More simply stated: “This is not turning out to be the gravy that that we expected.”
ROTFLMAO.
Wasn’t it Mark Z Jacobson of Stanford who sued the National Academy of Sciences after they published a paper revealing major deficiencies in the “energy transition” plan he is selling to state legislatures? When they countersued him, he withdrew his suit with the explanation that he did expect to have to go to court but that the NAS would simply settle with him? This dropping of contracts is likely some equivalent bid for the money they want.
But Jacobson’s work underlies the NY State energy plan!!
Without Crude Oil, there can be no Electricity.
All the parts to generate electricity, and all the components needed to use electricity, are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil.
Summary: In the pre-1800’s, before crude oil, mankind had no electricity.
https://www.cfact.org/2023/10/17/without-crude-oil-there-can-be-no-electricity/
Only if you count Nat Gas as crude oil.
Here’s a sublime microcosm of the climate changers’ macro problem-
NRMA responds after detail on outback charging station is ridiculed (yahoo.com)
Yesterday with its optimal sunny day bell curve my 6.64kW nameplate solar panels with 6kW three phase inverter pumped out 42.3kWhrs for the day and ditto Adelaide rooftop solar in general. Compare that with only 1.8kWhrs total for a wet miserable day in winter and ditto again across Adelaide. Despite the 9 diesel generators that can consume 80,000 litres/hr we’re paying for on standby we’re also building an interconnector to NSW black coal to complement the interconnector to Vic brown coal while they’re busily replacing their coal with solar and wind. The people doing this are actually adults with letters after their names.
I’m impressed. If you had a conservative total of 10 hours of above-threshhold sunlight on your 6.64 kWh nameplate (i.e., peak output) solar panels, you would have had an overall power conversion efficiency of 42.3 kWh/(6.64 kW*10 hours) = 64%.
Now I’m assuming you don’t have active solar tracking on your home’s PV panels nor are they inclined to compensate for your home’s latitude, so just an assumed compound cosine loss (average N-S angles off-normal to incoming sunlight plus average E-W angles off-normal to incoming sunlight as the sun pass “overhead” during the day) of cosine 20° N-S times assumed cosine 45° E-W (= total loss geometrical factor of 66%), you appear to have had essentially 100% conversion efficiency for sunlight DC-voltage power “pumped out” and converted into 3-phase AC-voltage usable power for your home.
Congratulations on achieving that efficiency breakthrough!
No tracking but all 16 panels pretty much face north at 30 degrees inclination and the peak output is 6kW (you can tap on the app bell curve graph anywhere to see the output at any time of day). Get a sunny day with intermittent clouds and the graph looks like the Himalayas. So everyone with rooftop solar knows what a sick joke it really is and it’s a classic case of dumping with poorer consumers paying the price. But hey leftys make the rules and I’m just another rational investor looking at the excellent tax free ROI.
More good news. Fire up your fossil fuel and nuclear generators. Refit your old ones and build new ones. You will never have to worry about energy again.
It’s not always that simple and you gotta read the contract-
Nuclear Plant at Heart of Rift Between Putin and Top Ally (newsweek.com)
No probs with the NIMBYs though.
I thought wind power was free? What’s the problem here?
I wish a popular newspaper would make that its headline.
“Macroeconomic factors have changed dramatically over a short period of time, with high inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks impacting our long-term capital investments.”
Translation: “The fad is almost over because we’re running out of dough.”
There is 97% consensus that big wind is failing..
Why are they running undersea cables over 25 miles north to the Oyster Creek nuclear plant? Why not run cables directly (NW) to shore, and use existing transmission lines on land to ship the power north? Seems like a tremendous waste of taxpayer $$$.
The laws of nature and economics seem to be too much to handle in the world of government fiat and wishful thinking.
And another one….
LONDON (Reuters) – Shell’s finance chief said on Thursday the firm had exited a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the planned SouthCoast windfarm off the coast of Massachusetts, agreeing to pay a penalty rather than face rising costs for building the project.
Energy firms from BP to Orsted have announced hefty writedowns in recent days for their U.S. windfarm projects in the face of high inflation.