Norway’s wind power giant trims its sails

Wind power is running low on puff. Equinor, Norway’s state-owned energy company, has cut its target for new renewable energy capacity from 12-16 gigawatts by 2030 to 10-12 gigawatts.

For context, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, in the North Sea, will produce 3.6 gigawatts when complete.

Reuters says the reasons for Equinor’s significant reduction in ambition – following similar loss of nerve at Shell and BP – include high interest rates, high input costs, supply chain bottlenecks and “unattractive margins”.

Wind power’s margins are a riddle: they fail to rival oil’s even though once turbines are installed the marginal cost of extra power when the wind blows is zero, so the margins should be enormously attractive.

And yet they aren’t. Explanations welcome at sensemaker@tortoisemedia.com.