Wind farm giant Orsted’s chief executive quits

The chief executive of Orsted, the multinational energy giant which is one of the UK’s biggest offshore wind farm developers, has quit.

Mads Nipper will leave the Danish company after a series of vast writedowns and declining share prices in recent years.

Rasmus Errboe, his deputy, will take the top job on Saturday, the company said in a statement.

Orsted is developing the largest offshore wind farm in the world about 75 miles off the Norfolk coast in the North Sea.

Hornsea 3 is expected to be completed in late 2027, and will sit alongside 12 other wind farms either developed or part-developed by Orsted in the UK.

Between them, they can already generate enough electricity to power about six million homes.

But while the UK is pushing ahead with plans to develop wind farms as part of a push to reach net zero in the power system by 2030, the situation is more complicated in other countries.

The US, in particular, is a significant doubt for Orsted, after President Donald Trump said he would stop federal permission for new offshore wind projects.

The company took a 1.7 billion dollar hit on a project in the country earlier this month, amid rising costs to develop one of its wind farms.

“The impacts on our business of the increasingly challenging situation in the offshore wind industry, ranging from supply chain bottlenecks, interest rate increases, to a changing regulatory landscape, mean that our focus has shifted,” said Lene Skole, the company’s chair.