OSLO, Jan 26 (Reuters) – Norway’s Equinor maintains an ambition to reach 12-16 gigawatts (GW) of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030, despite dropping out of some projects in New York, its renewables head told Reuters on Friday.
“The 12 to 16 gigawatt ambition by 2030, we are not changing that now,” Paal Eitrheim said in an interview.
Late on Thursday, the company announced an asset swap with former partner BP  for offshore wind projects in the U.S. state of New York, effectively only moving the 0.8-GW Empire Wind 1 project, forward.
Equinor’s project pipeline has developed in recent years to allow the group to maintain its ambition even with the latest changes, Eitrheim said.
The company will provide more details at its capital markets day planned for Feb. 7, he added.
Equinor is seeking better terms for Empire Wind 1 in New York’s latest offshore wind auction, which closed on Thursday, after a previous attempt to agree a better deal failed in October.
The new bid has been submitted at a price level that was competitive but would restore profitability, albeit at the lower end of Equinor’s guided real base project return for renewables of 4-8%, Eitrheim said.
“I actually do think that what we announced yesterday is positive news because it will potentially enable us to restore fundamental profitability to a really important project,” he added.
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