Donald Trump has urged the UK government to “get rid of windmills” in the North Sea and open it up for oil & gas, which earned the US president-elect an open invitation from Humber Marine and Renewables, a UK regional industry organisation, to visit Hull and witness the effects of offshore wind on the economy first-hand.
According to global media, on 3 January, Donald Trump said via his social media platform Truth Social that the UK was “making a very big mistake” with wind energy and that it should “open up the North Sea”, accompanying the post with a link to news about US oil company Apache saying it would exit the North Sea, citing the windfall tax in the UK. The news on Apache’s UK exit followed the UK government’s announcement on raising the tax from 35 per cent to 38 per cent and using the profit for renewable energy.
After the incoming US president’s social media post, director of the UK industry organisation Humber Marine and Renewables, Dave Laister , said in a comment to BBC : “I’d like to invite Donald Trump, or a representative here in the UK, to come to Hull and take in Offshore Wind Connections 2025. He needs to hear what those ‘windmills’ have done for the economy, for our maritime heritage and for the region’s sense of purpose. I’d like him to understand the appetite for working in this clean, green sector from those at our schools and colleges, to sample the hunger to be part of a climate emergency solution.”
An analysis published on 10 December by a UK think tank Ember says that renewable energy overtook fossil fuel electricity generation in 2024 for the first time in UK history. Wind, solar and hydropower combined generated 37 per cent, while fossil fuels contributed 35 per cent.
The UK currently has 43 offshore wind farms in operation and an operational capacity of 14,733 MW, which can power more than 25 million homes, according to data from RenewableUK .
While no new offshore wind farms entered full commercial operation in 2024, some of the turbines installed on projects under construction are producing electricity.
A few months ago, the UK government awarded approximately 5.3 GW of new offshore wind capacity in the Contract for Difference (CfD) Allocation Round 6.
For US President-elect Donald Trump, this is not the first time fighting offshore wind projects in the UK. Around a decade ago, Donald Trump challenged the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind farm (also known as European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre) in courts saying the wind turbines in the bay would ruin the landscape and the view from his golf resort in Aberdeen.
While several large offshore wind leases were awarded during the first presidential term of the incoming US president, Donald Trump has been known as a major supporter of oil & gas and, during the first mandate, approved the 2019-2024 National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program that made more than 90 per cent of the US OCS available for oil and gas exploration and production.
At the time when the draft proposal was released (2017/2018), twelve of the 23 affected coastal states requested exclusion and expressed their opposition to any new oil & gas leasing.
A few days ago, the US saw a permanent ban imposed on offshore drilling, encompassing 625 million acres of US OCS waters.
According to our sibling news site Offshore-Energy.biz , the ban covers all US Outer Continental Shelf areas off the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and additional portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, and is said to be hard to reverse as it needs to be changed in the US Congress in order for it to be revoked.