An Offshore Battle Looms – Watts Up With That?

From CFACT

By David Wojick

The world’s largest offshore wind developer, backed by the government of Denmark, is on a deliberate collision course with the Trump Administration.

The battleground is Sunrise Wind, a 924 megawatt (MW) offshore wind project located roughly 30 miles east of Long Island’s Montauk Point. Orsted just raised almost $10 billion, two-thirds of which is reportedly aimed at building Sunrise.

Sunrise has all its federal permits, but offshore construction has yet to begin, or, as the industry puts it, there is no “steel in the water.” The Trump administration has vowed to stop all offshore wind projects that are not already under construction, so Sunrise must be in the federal crosshairs.

One would think Orsted would simply hold off on Sunrise until Trump leaves, but their financial condition looks perilous, so they likely need Sunrise to survive. This makes the looming battle very interesting.

Even more interesting is that Orsted’s majority shareholder is the Government of Denmark. In a very real sense, this is two national governments facing off.

The fundraising exemplifies Orsted’s distress. They basically sold their existing stockholders a bunch of new stock at a hefty discount. The Maritime Executive puts it this way:

“Danish offshore wind giant Orsted has raised $9.4 billion by selling new shares to existing stockholders at a steeply discounted price. With 99 percent of the new shares sold immediately and the remaining one percent swiftly sold to the public, the firm is now on firmer financial ground as it faces market headwinds and political risk in its core markets.”

“Orsted sold the shares at a price of 66 Danish kroner each ($10.30), a fraction of the stock’s publicly-traded price of about 120 kroner and a third of the most recent peak, 180 kroner, reached in early August. Just five years ago, when Orsted’s prospects seemed brighter and it was expanding into new markets, its stock briefly traded above 600 kroner.”

https://maritime-executive.com/article/orsted-raises-9-4-billion-in-heavily-discounted-rights-issue

That the Trump administration will try to stop Sunrise Wind before it begins offshore construction is almost certain. In fact, the administration is already trying to stop Orsted’s $6 billion Revolution Wind project which has a lot of steel in the water. Many of its monopiles have been driven, and a few turbines erected, so it is maybe 50% along (unlike much higher press reports).

The Revolution Wind stoppage is in litigation, which has been widely misreported. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the administration’s stop work order pending trial, but this has been wrongly reported as the judge having quashed the order.

The judge merely ruled that there was a reasonable possibility of Orsted winning the lawsuit against the stop-work order, so preorder status quo was maintained pending that action. This is standard equity law, so no judgement has been made in the actual stop work lawsuit. Orsted is rushing to get as much built as possible in the interim.

As my CFACT colleague Collister Johnson points out, the Revolution Wind case is basically a federal contract dispute and there is a separate court for hearing these. Thus, the Revolution Wind stoppage case is far from over; in fact, it has yet to begin.

See https://www.cfact.org/2025/09/28/revolution-wind-is-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/

If the administration can stop Revolution Wind, it can certainly stop Sunrise, which has no steel in the water. Revolution and Sunrise, while struggling, look to be Orsted’s best bet for new cash flow, so this issue may be critical for them.

What this $10 billion battle with the Trump administration means for Orsted’s Danish government owner remains to be seen.

Stay tuned as this international drama unfolds.

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