Wind Power Succeeds to Meet Energy Needs

While European wind giants like Maersk and Ørsted face
cancellations and layoffs, America's offshore wind projects in
Virginia and Massachusetts are surging ahead, proving that genuine
energy demand trumps political headwinds when the physics and
economics align. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email
update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored
by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather
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YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the
show? Email us! It's an interesting time to be in wind
energy....In a shipyard in Singapore, there's a vessel worth four
hundred and seventy-five million dollars. It's ninety-eight percent
complete, built specifically to install wind turbines off the coast
of New York. And it's just floating there... abandoned. Maersk
Offshore Wind walked away from the contract last week. Just
cancelled it. Left Seatrium, the shipbuilder, holding a
near-finished vessel with nowhere to go. The ship was supposed to
build Empire Wind, but now lawyers are circling and nobody knows
what happens next. This is happening at the same time Orsted, the
company that pioneered offshore wind energy, announces it's cutting
two thousand jobs. That's a quarter of their entire workforce. In
Germany, Eno Energy just filed for bankruptcy, leaving two hundred
and eighty workers unemployed and the state government holding
thirteen million euros in loan guarantees. You might think the wind
industry is collapsing. But, you'd be wrong. Very wrong. Thirty
miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, workers just accomplished
something remarkable. They hammered one hundred and seventy-six
massive foundations into the Atlantic seabed, finishing the job in
just five months... ahead of schedule... in what everyone agrees
was perfect weather. And the weather along the East Cost of the US
has been splendid this year. This is Dominion Energy's Coastal
Virginia Offshore Wind project, and when it starts generating power
next March, it will be America's largest offshore wind farm.
Two-point-six gigawatts of power, enough for half a million homes.
But here's what makes this story truly odd in today's US political
environment.... Republican Congresswoman Jen Kiggans from Virginia
Beach stood up on the House floor last month to defend this wind
farm. Not attack it... defend it. She explained that this project
provides a five hundred million dollar power grid upgrade to Naval
Air Station Oceana. She called it a matter of national security.
House Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana, oil country, personally
told reporters he delivered Kiggans' message directly to the
President. "We want to do right by Virginians," he said. Think
about that for a moment. In this political climate, a Republican
Speaker is defending wind power. Why? Because Virginia desperately
needs electricity. Data centers are consuming power at
unprecedented rates, the military requires reliable energy, and
this project has already created two thousand American jobs while
pumping two billion dollars into the economy. Meanwhile, across the
Atlantic, something interesting is also developing. Chinese
manufacturer Ming Yang Smart Energy just announced they're
investing two billion dollars to build a turbine factory in
Scotland. They're promising fifteen hundred jobs for Scottish
workers, with production starting in twenty twenty-eight. The job
creations and investment amount sounds great, but there are still
many hurdles to overcome. The reliability and insurability of Ming
Yang turbines is still a hot topic amongst wind energy engineers.
And security concerns with Chinese turbines will surely raise
eyebrows of the UK, EU and US governments. Only time will tell....
Remember that ship floating in Singapore? Here's where the story
gets interesting. Dominion has just taken delivery of Charybdis,
the first American-built wind turbine installation vessel. When it
finishes its work in Virginia, it will be available for other
projects -- like the Empire Wind project off the coast of New York.
One company's cancellation could become another's opportunity. We
shall see.... And before I forget, up in Massachusetts, without
fanfare or political drama, Vineyard Wind has quietly reached fifty
percent capacity. Thirty turbines are now spinning, delivering four
hundred megawatts to the New England grid. Here's what years of
covering energy markets has taught me: Politics is temporary, but
physics is forever. The companies struggling today made a bet that
political support ... and interest rates....would remain stable.
The projects succeeding made a different bet entirely. They bet on
need and they have flexibility. Virginia needs power. The military
needs energy security. Data centers need electricity to keep the
internet running. And when genuine need meets engineering
capability, politics usually steps aside. That abandoned ship in
Singapore won't stay abandoned for long. Those unemployed German
and Danish engineers will find new jobs. Because here's the secret
that wind energy professionals understand but politicians sometimes
forget: We're not running out of wind, we're running out of
power....and money. The move to lower cost power sources shouldn't
really be about politics anymore. It should be about pocketbook
math. And the simple reality that our electricity demand is growing
faster than older energy sources can supply. Ultimately the winners
in this industry won't be the ones with the best political
connections or the loudest voices. They'll be the ones who
understand that when you're building infrastructure designed to
last generations, you'd better be building something the world
needs and can afford for years to come.