More Companies Postponing Or Cancelling Offshore Wind Projects
The only thing dumber than onshore wind energy is offshore wind energy. And over the past few months, the foolishness of offshore wind has become ever more apparent
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to ignore the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to cancel offshore projects in US waters.
Instead, I’ll focus on what’s happening overseas.
On September 16, in Australia, the state of Victoria postponed its inaugural auction on offshore wind projects, “citing global investment hurdles.”
Reuters explained the delay on the auction “deals another blow” to the offshore sector, “which is facing rising costs and regulatory hurdles, as well as market uncertainty.”
That delay came just four days after the developers of the $8 billion Navigator North project located offshore Victoria announced they are putting their project on hold.
Last month, the German government announced it did not get a single bid in its latest offshore auction.
Offshore magazine reporter Bruce Beaubouef had a good analysis of the auction:
This was Germany’s second offshore wind auction round so far this year. Both have been “no subsidy” auctions, and both have been unsuccessful. In this case, not a single offshore wind developer bid for either of the two sites N-10.1 and N-10.2 in the German North Sea.
The auction, described as a “flop” by analysts, signaled that offshore wind power developers are wary of taking on riskier, zero-subsidy projects amid rising costs and supply chain issues. (Emphasis added in source article.)
While the offshore fails in Australia and German offshore are notable, the most telling flop happened on August 27 in Japan, when industrial giant Mitsubishi Corporation announced it was withdrawing from three large offshore projects with a total capacity of 1.7 gigawatts.
Reuters said the company was quitting the projects “because of soaring costs.” Mitsubishi was part of a consortium that won the contract for the offshore projects in late 2021.
Like other large industrial companies in Japan, Mitsubishi has very close ties to the Japanese government. The company has also been aggressive in its declarations about its efforts to reduce its emissions.
Furthermore, offshore wind was supposed to be one of the pillars of Japan’s ‘decarbonization’ push. By quitting the deal, Mitsubishi is signaling that Japan’s offshore wind ambitions are dead in the water.
For proof of that, consider the reaction to Mitsubishi’s announcement from the Renewable Energy Institute, a Japanese NGO that aims to “establish a society based on renewable energy.”
The group was founded by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son (net worth: $61.4 billion), who is the founder of SoftBank Group. On September 2, the NGO published a comment, which said:
“For a leading trading house to abandon projects of this scale — despite JPY20 billion [$135 million] penalty payments — is highly unusual in Japan.”
Let me translate that into English: One of Japan’s most influential think tanks, a group that’s backed by Japan’s richest citizen, is admitting that one of the country’s biggest and most influential corporations would rather pay $135 million in penalties than try to build three offshore wind projects where costs are spiraling out of control and return on its investment is unlikely.
It has taken a long time, too long, but the evidence from Australia, Germany, and Japan is clear: the offshore wind scam is running out of steam. I’ll end this section with a quote from my friend, David Turver, who publishes the excellent Eigen Values here on Substack.
Today, in a piece on wind energy, he wrote, “it is crazy for a developed economy to try and run its electricity generation system using technologies that are dependent on the weather.”
Exactly right. And it’s even crazier to try to do that by putting that electricity generation system in saltwater.
The offshore wind sector deserves to die. The sooner, the better.
See more here substack.com
Bold emphasis added
Header image: WSP
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.