Orsted: Danish energy giant takes almost £400m hit from halted Yorkshire wind farm
Energy giant Orsted has said that it took an almost £400m hit from its decision to halt work on a major offshore wind project, which was set to be located off the coast of East Yorkshire.
Orsted announced in May that it was halting work on the Hornsea 4 offshore wind project, a planned wind farm in the North Sea that could have powered more than one million homes.
The company said in its latest financial report that it had taken a hit of around 3.4bn Danish Krone (DKK) from the move, or around £394m.
A statement in the firm’s second quarter report for 2025, said: “Our decision to discontinue Hornsea 4 in its current form led as expected to a negative EBITDA impact from cancellation fees of DKK 2.9bn and impairment losses of DKK 0.5bn in the first half year of 2025.”
The company added that around DKK 1.5bn of the DKK 2.9bn is related to the cables from its Ocean Wind 1 project – a previously planned US wind farm – that were to be reused at Hornsea 4.
Orsted said in May that the Hornsea 4 scheme had suffered rising supply chain costs, higher interest rates and an increasing risk that the project would not be completed on time. It added that the problems had “increased the execution risk and deteriorated the value creation of the project”.
Speaking at the of the announcement, chief executive, Rasmus Errboe said: “I’d like to emphasise that Orsted continues to firmly believe in the long-term fundamentals of and value perspectives for offshore wind in the UK.
“We’ll keep the project rights for the Hornsea 4 project in our development portfolio, and we’ll seek to develop the project later in a way that is more value-creating for us and our shareholders.”
Orsted also announced today that it was launching a fundraise for $9bn, or around £6.7bn, after what it described as “recent material developments in the US” had made it unable to raise money for a major US project.
The company’s market value fell by almost a third as it said Donald Trump’s stance on wind projects had impacted its efforts to sell a stake in its Sunrise Wind project.
The scheme is a 924-megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm located around 30 miles off the coast of New York's Montauk Point.
The news comes as green energy developers continue to face hostility from Donald Trump’s administration.
The administration last week announced that it was withdrawing millions of acres of federal waters which had previously been available for leasing for offshore wind, and opening investigations into bird deaths caused by wind farms.
Under Trump, the Interior Department has also brought in new layers of political review for wind and solar projects, lengthening planning and permitting times.