The Iran war appears to have supercharged the clean energy transition,providing a catalyst for wind power giants as countries reassess the role of renewables in shoring up energy security.
Danish wind turbine maker Vestas reported an unexpectedly large first-quarter profit rise on Wednesday,citing improved execution of its onshore and offshore businesses despite growing political uncertainty.
Danish utility Orsted also posted stronger-than-expected profit through the first three months of the year,while Norway’s Equinor
,which is primarily an oil and gas major,told CNBC that the Middle East crisis is set to deliver a boost to returns in its clean tech division.
Torgrim Reitan,chief financial officer at Equinor,said that the drivers behind the energy transition have clearly shifted amid the Iran war,moving from a focus on decarbonization to issues such as energy security,self-sufficiency and independence.
“In Europe,we see that there is clearly big momentum behind that,”Reitan told CNBC’s“Europe Early Edition.”
Equinor,which posted its strongest quarterly profit in three years on Wednesday,has three large offshore wind developments in the U.S.,Poland and U.K.,with the latter slated to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm when it enters production.
The oil and gas giant joined its industry rivals in reporting bumper first-quarter results,benefitting from soaring fossil fuel prices since the U.S.and Israeli-led war against Iran began on Feb.28.
Analysts expect the fallout from the Iran war energy shock to prompt countries to direct even more investment toward clean energy resources—a trend likely to benefit companies with exposure to green tech.
“Our priority is to deliver the projects we have under development and beyond that clearly we will have to see significant return from that business to invest—but we do believe that what is going on now will actually help the returns in sort of the transition industries,”Equinor’s Reitan said.
Energy transition
Denmark’s Orsted said events in the Middle East had reaffirmed the need to accelerate Europe’s energy transition,highlighting the role of offshore wind in particular as a key component in this shift.
“When we look at what’s happening in the world,there’s no reason not to switch gears in the energy transition towards renewables in Europe.Europe is spending billions every week on fossil fuel imports—but it doesn’t have to be that way,”Orsted CEO Rasmus Errboe said in a statement.
“Offshore wind and other renewables can deliver secure,green energy and can significantly lower total system costs for households and businesses when deployed at scale,”he added.
Orsted,which has struggled in recent years with soaring costs and supply chain disruption,has doubled down on its European businesses following resistance to U.S.wind power from the White House.
U.S.President Donald Trump has a long history of mocking wind power,claiming at the World Economic Forum earlier this year that wind turbines destroy land and lose money as he took aim at the European Union’s energy policy.
EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra dismissed Trump’s criticism as“nothing new”at the time,saying the region takes“a fundamentally different view”on the transition away from fossil fuels.
Data centers
Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen on Wednesday welcomed the firm’s best first-quarter earnings since 2018,saying the better-than-expected result bodes well for the rest of the year.
“We are in a much better place,probably than what we expected to be a few months ago,”Andersen told CNBC’s“Squawk Box Europe,”before seeking to highlight the benefits of electrifying the grid.
