By Tim Barsoe and Stine Jacobsen
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, plans to ramp up investments to become a global leader in renewable energy, spending $57 billion from 2020-2027.
The Danish firm, which has already switched its focus from fossil fuels to wind power, said on Wednesday it aimed to more than quadruple energy generation capacity over the next decade and escalate expansion in areas such as onshore wind and green hydrogen.
“Our aspiration is to become the world’s leading green energy major by 2030,” Chief Executive Mads Nipper said in a statement.
The 350 billion Danish crowns ($57 billion) of spending will see the company accelerating annual investments by roughly 50% compared with its previous target, it said.
Green hydrogen – or hydrogen produced by using renewable power – is seen as crucial in replacing fossil fuels in hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as shipping, aviation and heavy industries like mining.
Orsted said it was targeting 50 gigawatts (GW) of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030. That is up from the 30 GW target set in 2018 for the same date and current installed capacity of 12 GW.
($1 = 6.1011 Danish crowns)
(Reporting by Tim Barsoe and Stine JacobsenEditing by Mark PotterEditing by David Goodman)
