DONG Energy Completes Divestment Of Onshore Wind Projects In Favour Of Offshore

Danish wind energy giant DONG Energy announced Monday that it had completed the divestment of its onshore wind energy holdings, allowing the company to now focus solely on offshore wind energy.

DONG Energy agreed Monday to divest its shareholding in the Swedish onshore wind farm Storrun, a 30 MW wind farm which has been in operation since September 2009. DONG Energy sold its 80% ownership in the Storrun wind farm to Australian pension fund Prime Super.

This news follows on from last week’s agreement to divest its shareholding in the Norwegian onshore development company Zephyr. DONG Energy had a 33% ownership share of Zephyr, but has now divested to the three existing Norwegian co-shareholders, Østfold Energi, Vardar, and Energiselskapet Buskerud.

“Today, offshore wind is the fastest growing renewable energy technology in Europe, and it’s within offshore wind that DONG Energy has its key competences,” said Samuel Leupold, Executive Vice President for DONG Energy Wind Power. “Until now, we’ve installed more than 2,500MW offshore wind power capacity and we’re determined to install another 4,000MW by 2020.

“We’re fully committed to build new offshore wind farms to support the transition of our energy supply in a greener direction. Therefore, I’m very pleased with the fact that we’ve now divested our last onshore wind activities so that we can focus entirely on this considerable task.”

A look back through the CleanTechnica archives of DONG Energy news proves the company’s intentions — “Continued Positive Development” in this sector in its Q3 earnings; approval for a 660 MW extension at the Walney Offshore Wind Farm; and partnership in SMartWind, a consortium developing a 1.2 GW offshore wind farm in the North Sea.

DONG Energy has been divesting itself of its onshore investments for some time now, with several major divestments highlighted on its website. In February 2013, DONG Energy divested commissioned onshore wind farms totalling 111.5 MW and another 700 MW of development projects in Poland.

A couple of months later in June, the company divested commissioned onshore wind farms totalling 196 MW and another 23 MW of development in Denmark.

And lastly, just a few months ago in September of 2014, DONG Energy divested an onshore wind farm in France.

With such an industry heavyweight pouring so much of its time and resources into offshore wind energy, including some of the biggest and hottest projects we are currently aware of, other companies will surely fall in line, backing the offshore wind industry through the next decade.