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
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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.