The second half of 2023 has seen several setbacks for the development of offshore wind projects as a number of projects in the US have been shut down by developers, including Denmark’s Ørsted, as rising prices, delays and higher interest rates have destroyed their profitability.

However, this does not mean that there will be no more offshore wind projects, group chief investment officer at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), Martin Neubert, tells Danish business daily Børsen.

”It’s important for me to say that this is about a number of projects. It is not the entire offshore wind industry that is stumbling. This is not the end of offshore wind,” asserts Neubert.

Indeed, the shelved projects were awarded some time ago when both wind turbine prices and interest rates were lower, with fixed electricity settlement levels that were no longer sufficient.

However, the challenges in offshore wind have been a topic of conversation for CIP and potential investors in the company’s investment funds.

”I’ve spent a lot of time with our investors over the last three months. I think it’s important to be careful about generalizing. There are real problems in the industry and especially in certain markets, but the specific situations are very different,” the CIO explains to Børsen, pointing out that raising capital has become more challenging.

Martin Neubert was previously COO at Ørsted.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Katrine Gøthler)