Ørsted a Couple of Gigawatts Away from Its 2025 Offshore Wind Ambition

Ørsted’s current installed and decided offshore wind capacity accounts for almost 9GW out of its ambition of 11-12GW by the end of 2025, announced at the beginning of this year.

The company’s latest project added to the book is the 1,386MW Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm in the UK, which expanded its portfolio of offshore wind farms after the project won the government’s Contract for Difference (CfD) followed by Ørsted (now formerrly known as DONG Energy) reaching the final investment decision in September.

At the end of 2016, the company had a total of 3.6GW of already installed offshore wind capacity, saying that its 2020 target of 6.5GW (set in 2013) will be exceed by 200MW after the completion of the 1.2GW Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm.

Hornsea Project One is now under construction, same as the company’s 659MW Walney Extension offshore wind project, half of which Ørsted just recently agreed to sell to a consortium of two Danish pension funds, PKA and PFA.

In the post-2020 period, the licences for the Dutch projects Borssele 1 & 2 represent the first 0.7GW of capacity to be fully commissioned.

In April 2017, Ørsted won the rights to build three offshore wind projects in the German North Sea totalling 590MW, two of which will be built and operated without subsidies. The projects are anticipated to be completed in 2024.

Ørsted also has an offshore wind portfolio outside Europe, including the U.S. projects Ocean Wind in New Jersey and Bay State Wind in Massachusetts, four projects in the Changhua region in Taiwan planned to be developed by 2025, and a 35% ownership share in the Taiwanese offshore wind farm project Formosa 1, whose first phase is already operational with the installation of the second one planned for 2019.

Offshore WIND Staff