Report: Dong Energy forced to hire Rothschild to help find fresh investment

According to reports this week, Danish renewable energy specialist Dong Energy is working with UK investment specialist Rothschild to help attract funding for future wind projects.

An article in The Sunday Times claimed that Dong has been forced to seek help from Rothschild as it can not attract enough interest in off-shore wind energy projects in the current economic climate.

"The issue is that these projects require enormous amounts of capital and it's getting very difficult to justify,” The Times reported an industry source as saying. "The enthusiasm there once was has diminished."

But when contacted by BusinessGreen.com, Dong refused to comment on The Times story, saying it does not respond to industry rumour.

However, a company spokeswoman did go on to say that the company is committed to several wind projects in the UK including the London Array, which will see the world's largest offshore wind farm in the Thames Estuary.

The consortium behind the Array consists of Dong Energy, which holds a 50 per cent stake, E.ON of Germany, which has a 30 per cent stake, and Abu Dhabi's Masdar investment group, which holds the remaining 20 per cent. The consortium announced it was to proceed with the £1.9bn project in May, after a series of delays sparked by Shell's exit from the group last year.

The recession has proved tough for Dong. In October the Danish company withdrew from the 1.6GW Hunterston power station scheme in Scotland.

Dong said at the time that it walked away from the project as a result of the unfavourable economics of building a new coal plant, which meant it could face difficulties attracting new investors.

Earlier this week, Energy and Climate Change secretary Ed Miliband published national policy statements for wind power that will help hasten the progress of 700MW of wind projects stuck in the planning system.

When agreed, the newly formed Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) will use the policy statements as a basis for making the final decision on approving the construction of onshore wind farms over 50MW and offshore wind farms over 100MW.