Orsted's Offshore Wind Power Profits Breeze Ahead

Danish wind power giant Orsted sees surge in earnings from offshore wind, driving interim profits up 14 percent and earnings up 32 percent  for the first nine months of 2018.

The world’s largest wind farm operator, formerly known as Dong Energy said that the positive results are due to its transition to a 100 percent green power business and with its third quarter financial results revealing a surge in earnings from offshore wind and a jump in its green share of generation. "Our green share of generation increased from 59% to 71%," said a statement.

Danish energy group  said operating profits for the first nine months of 2018 were up 14 per cent to DKK10.8bn ($1.65bn), compared to the same period in 2017, mainly driven by a 32 per cent uptick in operating profits from its wind farms.

“The increase is primarily due to good progress on our offshore construction projects,” Chief Executive Henrik Poulsen said in a statement, noting a faster ramp-up of power generation at the Borkum Riffgrund 2 project in Germany.

"We remain very pleased with the operational and financial performance of the company as we continue to expand our position as a global leading company in the green energy industry,” he added.

Ørsted closed the acquisition of the US-based onshore wind company, Lincoln Clean Energy (LCE) in October Onshore wind will be run and reported as a separate business unit within the Ørsted Group.

The company have entered into an agreement to acquire Deepwater Wind at a price of USD 510 million (enterprise value of USD 700 million) last month.