European renewables, particularly wind energy, fall en masse and lead the declines in the European stock market this Wednesday. In particular, the sinking of Vestas and Orsted stands out with a decrease of up to 6.39% and 6.68%respectively, during the day. Completing the podium is Siemens Energy, owner of Gamesa, the Spanish-German wind giant, which has recorded a decline of 6.11%. EDP also fell sharply, losing up to 3.66%. Acciona, for its part, lost 2.94%. These setbacks come after the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, said in a press conference at his Florida resort that “we are going to try to ensure that the United States has a policy in which windmills are not built.”
Although Trump has long opposed wind energy, the sector expanded significantly during his first term, thanks in part to federal tax credits. In his comments on Tuesday, the president-elect criticized “massive subsidies” which, according to him, receives the technology from the US government. The US was, until the rise of Trump, the greatest promise of wind development worldwide. According to Mordor Intelligence, the wind market until 2027 had to grow by 5.87% annualized thanks to the giga wind farm projects that the Biden administration was launching.
In that sense, Trump is going one step further with respect to the criticisms he made in his first term. Specifically, he also spoke about the New Jersey project, one of the most promising in the world, with nearly 200,000 offshore wind turbines that are being developed by EDF and Shell, among others. Regarding this project, the Republican has been forceful: “They are filling our country with garbagenobody wants them because they are very expensive.
Wind energy, furthermore, is in a complicated situation. Although it has partially emerged from the critical spiral of 2023, when great Chinese competition, the rise in rates and failures in various generators caused holes in the accounts of billions of dollars in companies such as Siemens Energy, Vestas or Orsted, the situation It is still fragile. GE Vernova mentioned in its latest results that They expect a “humble” demand. In that sense, he regretted that wind energy is being left out of the fever that all energy companies are experiencing for data centers. The reason, according to the firm, is that these centers require “constant energy.”
Trump’s criticism of the wind industry has gone beyond his own borders and the Republican last week criticized projects in the UK’s North Sea, demanding an end to British offshore wind. “The UK is making a big mistake. Open the North Sea and get rid of the windmills“Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
The Republican linked to a report from Apa Corp, the American oil producer that plans to abandon the North Sea in 2029 due to a drop in oil production of 20% in 2025 and higher in subsequent years. A fall of one of the great energy lungs at the level of gas and crude oil in the world that would be replaced by offshore wind. In fact, the Labor government plans to boost offshore wind power to 60 gigawatts, that is, quadruple it.
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