Green Energy Ambitions of European Companies Take a Beating

Rasmus Errboe, the new chief executive of the Danish offshore wind developer Orsted, sounded as if he had inherited a mess as he explained a 25 percent paring of the company’s investment plans on Thursday.Over the past two years, Orsted has backed away from some huge wind projects it planned to build off the East Coast of the United States, notably off New Jersey, because of delays, inflation and higher interest rates.Now, President Trump’s aversion to offshore wind farms threatens to complicate the two big projects off New York and Rhode Island that Orsted says it is still committed to completing.“We are working relentlessly to minimize the risks given the market conditions and the economic climate,” Mr.Errboe said.

“I’m not able to hand out any guarantees.”The downshift at Orsted, one of Europe’s flagship renewable energy developers, came just a day after Equinor, the Norwegian energy giant that has been a large investor in renewable energy, said it would cut planned spending on low-emission projects to $5 billion, from $10 billion, over the next three years.“The energy transition is moving slower than expected,” Anders Opedal, chief executive of Equinor, said Wednesday at a meeting in London to discuss the company’s strategy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....