Healthy Danish

Deepwater Wind Sold to Danish Wind Company

By ecoRI News staff

Deepwater Wind, one of Rhode Island’s pioneering technology and renewable-energy companies, is now owned by a European business.

Denmark-based Ørsted bought Deepwater Wind from its parent investment company D.E. Shaw for $510 million, according to a press release. 

The new owners promise that Deepwater Wind personnel based in Rhode Island will continue to work in their downtown office. Ørsted plans to add new long-term corporate jobs in the state.

Ørsted, founded in 1991, operates 24 offshore wind facilities with an electric capacity of 5,100 megawatts, the most in the world. 

Ørsted was previously called DONG, short for Danish Oil & Natural Gas, but changed its name to Ørsted in 2017 after it divested its oil and gas businesses. The new name was taken from Hans Christian Ørsted, a pioneering Danish scientist.

Deepwater Wind’s energy portfolio include the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm and several proposed offshore wind and onshore solar projects in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland, and New York totaling 810 megawatts.

The 50-turbine Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and its investments in the state at the Port of Qounset and in Providence will continue as planned, according to the new company. 

The project is expected to create some 800 construction jobs in Rhode Island and dozens of long-term maintenance and operations jobs.

The development rights to build the 2,000-megawatt Bay State Wind site off the coast of Massachusetts will also continue, according to Ørsted.

Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski has been named co-CEO of the new combined company. Grybowski and a new chief operating officer from the Ørsted organization will be based in Rhode Island. 

Other senior executives, including Thomas Brostrøm, CEO of the new organization, will be based in Boston.

“Ørsted will maintain a strong presence in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and will of course honor the local commitments associated with Deepwater Wind’s projects along the East Coast,” said Brostrøm, CEO of Ørsted U.S. offshore wind and president of Ørsted North America.

“Ørsted is one of the world’s great clean energy companies and real pioneers in the offshore wind sector. We could not be more pleased with this combination, which will bring together two great teams to realize an enormous clean energy resource for coastal populations in the United States,” Grybowski said.