On a vast flatland on Denmark's Jutland Peninsula near a small town, a family-owned company called Welcon has been preparing to build a massive cylindrical wind turbine tower for a multi-billion-dollar project.
The project, a wind farm called Empire Wind, is being built by Norwegian energy giant Equiner off the coast of Long Island, New York, but last month these plans were disrupted when the Trump administration, skeptical of offshore wind power, ordered an indefinite halt to construction.
The pause shocked Karsten Pedersen, who owns brothers Jens and Welcon, and the wind industry.
“In my opinion, it's the banana republic over there,” Pedersen said, referring to the chaotic electric shock of policy changes coming from Washington. “We can't stop the project,” which developers have already worked for many years.
Welcon was tapped as a subcontractor to supply the project's towers by Vestas Wind Systems, a leading wind turbine manufacturer headquartered in Aarphs, Jatland.
If Empire Wind is closed forever, Vestas will lose about $1 billion worth of production orders with 54 latest turbines with blades close to 380 feet long. The contractor will likely receive some compensation from the Equiner.
The wind industry is crucial to European ambitions to tackle climate change and enhance energy security, but three months after President Trump's second term, industry executives are reevaluating their approach to renewable energy.
The key question is whether the gusts of the president's first action and concerns about what will come will derail what appears to be the beginning of the industry's recovery.
The wind business has taken a throbbing thrash after a pandemic, where higher interest rates and inflation turned contracts and projects into loss makers. Industry executives rely on Europe to make up for pullbacks in the US.
“We're excited to announce that we're a great deal of energy,” said Rasmus Errboe, CEO of Orsted, a Denmark-based global wind developer. He expects to account for 20-25% of European power generation by 2050, compared to about 4% in 2024, adding that this means hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on new facilities.
Overall, Wind provided about 20% of Europe's electricity in 2024, according to industry association Windeurope.
Both Vestas and Orsted reported positive financial results for the first quarter this week. Vestas said it had a small profit of 5 million euros in the quarter compared to its losses the previous year, but Orsted, which previously underwent major amortization on a project planned in the US, said its profits were up 87%, or about $744 million.
Vestas' stock has fallen by about 50% for a year ago, while Orsted's fell by about 40% at the same time.
In signs that even Europe is continuing its economic and regulatory environment, Orsted said Wednesday that it would not proceed with a large-scale planned facility called Hornsea 4 in the UK's North Sea.
Errboe condemned the rise in prices from suppliers and the uncertainty of the decision. This still costs companies worth 4.5 billion crore or around $680 million to compensate for contractors and other expenses. “We've simply seen prices rise and projects have increased,” he said.
Despite the risks, offshore winds have been a huge success in Northern Europe. Orsted estimates that the cost of electricity from these installations fell 70% from 2015 to 2020. Since then, wind power costs have risen by 50%.
A few years ago, the US looked like a promising market for offshore wind power. Currently, industry executives are assuming that new offshore projects will not launch under the Trump administration.
There are doubts as to whether two huge projects by Orsted are currently underway, complete with the Revolutionary Winds from Rhode Island and the Sunrise Winds from Montauk, New York.
Errboe said these projects are already on track. Orsted has earned a $180 million amortization on the value of these wind farms due to the impact of the 25% tariffs imposed on imported steel and aluminum by the Trump administration.
As it is primarily a land successor builder, Vestas, which has 30% of the global market outside China, is somewhat insulated from the precarious offshore winds, a new, more risky industry.
In an interview, the company's president and CEO Henrik Andersen said in a period of pre-pandemic international concerns regarding China, Vestas has learned to geographically arrange turbine manufacturing to reduce damages from tariffs and other measures. “We generally tend to shuffle things,” he said.
Vestas has its factory in Colorado and produces onshore turbines sold in the US, one of the largest markets.
Andersen said the facilities were operated “seven days a week” to produce ordered turbines under the favorable conditions that spread during the Biden administration.
He said having a US factory reduced the impact of tariffs, but some components, such as generators, are still likely to be imported.
Whether the factory will continue to operate at a full tilt will depend on whether trust will return. U.S. land turbine orders have at least temporarily dried up as developers wait for the White House to clarify policies.
Endri Rico, a leading analyst at consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, estimates that U.S. turbine orders have fallen to the lowest levels since the first quarter of 2020.
Dealing with change and the unknown has become the role of wind executives. “Of course, I don't know what will be announced in five or six days,” Andersen said.
But what's certain is that costs will be passed on to customers, and “taxes mean higher US electricity prices,” he said.
