Published in La Tribune on November 27.
Are investments in offshore wind farms for electricity generation now profitable, or is it necessary to continue subsidizing them? Two recent events suggest that this industry is not as close to "grid parity" as its advertising would have us believe: on the one hand, an unsuccessful Danish tender, and on the other, Shell's abandonment of its projects off the coast of Scotland.
No bidders for the Danish tender of October 16, 2025
Since the beginning of the century, Denmark has radically greened its electricity production. In 25 years, the country has increased wind energy to more than 58% of its electricity mix and photovoltaic production to nearly 11%. And the Danish government does not want to stop there. In October 2025, it launched a tender for a 1GW wind farm located in the North Sea about 95 kilometers offshore. The name of the winner was to be announced in spring 2026. The initial project even planned to auction off two 2GW lots, but the government scaled back its ambitions to attract more bidders. These hopes were dashed, as no bids were submitted within the deadline set for the tender. This was probably due to the sharp increase in the cost of the installations to be built. To prevent this fiasco from happening again, the Danish government will subsidize offshore wind power to the tune of €1 billion in 2026 before preparing a Contract for Difference system to be applied from 2027...
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