Following Trump's anti-wind decisions, EDF downgrades major US offshore wind project

Donald Trump has accused wind turbines of multiple evils ("ugly", "blighting the landscape", "killing whales"). Just after arriving at the White House in January, he signed executive orders hampering the sector's activity. Among the measures announced, a freeze on operating permits and federal loans for any offshore or onshore wind projects in the country.

"There are significant developments in American offshore policy" and this "leads us to reexamine the developments we have underway in the American offshore, and to take a position that protects the company with regard to its future developments," explained EDF CEO Luc Rémont during a conference call with the press.

"In order to reflect the new American orientations (...), the board of directors has decided, at this stage, to depreciate the developments carried out offshore at Atlantic Shores," he added.

The joint venture is developing two offshore wind projects off the coast of New Jersey for which it received construction and operating approvals in October; and it was selected in February 2022 to develop areas off the coasts of New Jersey and New York, within a triangle called the New York Bight of nearly 2.000 square kilometers, making it the largest area ever proposed at a single time in the United States.

Shell said in a briefing with journalists in late January that it had suspended its stake in Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight, at the cost of a writedown of nearly $1 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Atlantic Shores then indicated in a press release that it could not "comment on the positions of its shareholders" but affirmed that it still "intends to continue to progress" on its projects.

Wind power in the United States is not as developed as in Europe and represented about 2023% of the country's total electricity production in 10. However, this is more than double that of solar.