U.S. court allows a wind farm project to restart after Trump administration block, and a Danish stock surges

By Jules Rimmer

The Trump administration disapproves of wind technology and suspended the licences of five operators in January. A judge has blocked one of those suspensions.

The shutdown at Revolution Wind farm was costing Orsted $1 million every day

Shares in the Danish wind farm operator Orsted (DK:ORSTED) rallied as much as 7% in Copenhagen Tuesday following a U.S. District Court of Columbia decision to block the suspension of its U.S. project by the Trump administration.

The court's ruling will enable Orsted to immediately restart Revolution Wind, a joint venture with Sky Renewables after its lease was suspended on Dec. 22, as part of President Donald Trump's program of abandoning wind technology.

Trump has a long record of criticizing wind turbines as expensive, ineffective and having a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of whales

Many brokers predicted a major relief rally after the news was announced Monday with Bank of America estimating a 10% rebound and Handelsbanken guessing more like 4%. Bernstein's analyst Deepa Venkateswaran expects a similar ruling. from the same judge, in favor of Orsted's other offshore wind projects, including its Sunrise Wind venture, that have been suspended by the government.

Venkateswaran pointed out that the daily cost of the suspension was around $1 million for Revolution and $770,000 daily for Sunrise so this court ruling could not come soon enough.

Only last year, Orsted was forced into a rights issue to raise $9.5 billion after the hostility of the White House towards wind technology in general meant it could not sell a stake in Sunrise Wind. The U.S. Interior Department had cited "national security concerns" as its reason for blocking wind farm projects, saying the turbines could interfere with military radar systems.

Work was originally halted back in August 2025, recommenced after a federal judge ruled it was possible and then halted again in December when Revolution Wind was around 90% complete. The stop-start pattern means that even if legal challenges can be overcome, securing investment in new and ongoing projects is tremendously difficult and analysts will be obliged to factor into their models a higher cost of capital.

Shares in the Danish energy giant were up 4.7% in midday trading on the Copenhagen stock exchange. Ranked seventh among the largest stocks in Denmark XX:OMXCPI by market capitalization, Orsted's regulatory travails in America have been responsible for its 18% decline in the last twelve months but shareholders will be relieved to see the stock is now back to roughly the same level where it was before the suspension was announced.

FactSet has around three dozen analysts submitting recommendations to their database, and there is only sell rating among them even though the mean target price of 137 kroner is pretty much where the stock is trading right now.

In a press statement, Orsted said it will "determine how best it may be possible to work with the U.S. Administration to achieve an expeditious and durable resolution."

-Jules Rimmer

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