Troubled wind developer Orsted to cut 25 percent of staff

Orsted, the Danish renewable energy developer, said Thursday that it would cut about 2,000 jobs, or around 25 percent of its workforce, over the next two years.

Print this Article View Comments Wind turbine foundation components at the Revolution Wind construction hub at the Port of Providence.

Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg ENERGY Orsted, the Danish renewable energy developer, said Thursday that it would cut about 2,000 jobs, or around 25 percent of its workforce, over the next two years.

The move was the latest sign of the diminished prospects for offshore wind, a low-emissions technology that Orsted helped pioneer.

“We’ll be saying goodbye to many skilled and valued colleagues,” Rasmus Errboe, Orsted’s CEO, said in a statement.

Not long ago, Orsted looked on its way to becoming a global giant in the renewable energy industry, with a portfolio that includes high-profile projects in the United States.

Now, the company suggested it would dial back those aspirations and hunker down in its home base of Europe.

Offshore wind farms, which cost billions of dollars to build, have lost some of their luster.

The sector is under attack by President Trump, while adverse economic developments, including inflation and high interest rates, have eroded profitability.

Errboe said Orsted would be finishing its construction projects in the coming years and so “we’ll need fewer employees.” The Trump administration has actively opposed efforts to construct wind farms off the East Coast of the United States, ordering a halt this year to one of Orsted’s projects, called Revolution Wind.

The $6.2 billion development off Rhode Island was 80 percent completed at the time of Trump’s order, Orsted said.

Although a federal judge said last month that Revolution Wind could proceed, and work has restarted, Orsted’s future in the United States, including a large wind farm it is building off New York, called Sunrise Wind, now looks uncertain.

— NEW YORK TIMES Federal regulators have opened yet another investigation into Tesla’s self-driving feature after dozens of incidents in which the cars ran red lights or drove on the wrong side of the road, sometimes crashing into other vehicles and causing injuries.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a filing that it is looking into 58 incidents in which Teslas reportedly violated traffic safety laws while using the company’s so-called Full Self-Driving mode, leading to more than a dozen crashes and fires and nearly two dozen injuries.

The new probe adds to several other open investigations into Tesla technology that could upend Elon Musk’s plans to turn millions of his cars already on the road into completely driverless vehicles with a over-the-air update to their software.

Investors sold Tesla stock on the news in afternoon trading Thursday, pushing it down 0.7 percent.