Ørsted plans to build 1.2GW of new onshore wind and solar in the US Gulf coast, having signed a letter of intent with Maersk, the world’s largest shipping company.
The agreement marks Ørsted’s entry into the US power-to-x market, which it described as “a new strategic market for the company”, as output from the new wind and solar projects will be used in a 675MW power-to-x facility in the region.
It will produce 300,000 tonnes of e-methanol per year to fuel Maersk’s new fleet of a dozen methanol-fuelled container vessels.
The new investment will help Ørsted reach its target of 17.5GW of installed onshore capacity, and 50GW of renewable energy capacity in total, by 2030.
Ørsted declined to say how the new capacity would be split between wind and solar, or name any sites. But the company aims to take a final investment decision in 2023 and commission the power-to-x project in the second quarter of 2025, in order to meet Maersk’s needs for fuel for the new vessels, which are already on order.
The 300,000-tonne e-methanol supply agreement is the largest so far announced in the maritime industry, the companies claimed.
Neil O’Donovan, CEO of Ørsted Onshore, said: “The US Gulf states have an abundance of cheap renewable energy resources, both solar and wind, making the region a natural location for large-scale production of green fuels, which we expect there will be a very large demand for in the US going forward.”
Ørsted’s power-to-x development pipeline consists of 11 projects, including a 45% share in Liquid Wind’s 70MW FlagshipOne project in Sweden. FlagshipOne is targeted to be commissioned in 2024, producing 50,000 tonnes of e-methanol per year, and is intended to be the first of several such facilities in Sweden.
Maersk had previously signed a deal with developer European Energy for a new e-methanol plant in Denmark that would produce 300,000 tonnes of methanol annually.
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