Danish renewable energy developer Orsted has inaugurated a new office in downtown Houston, Texas, aiming to bolster its presence in the state and support its clean energy projects. The company already operates an office in Austin with 115 employees.
Orsted currently owns and operates eight clean energy projects in Texas, collectively producing 2.4GW of electricity, enough to power over 550,000 Texas homes and businesses. An additional 1.2GW of solar projects are under construction.
The Houston office will house approximately 30 full-time employees dedicated to both onshore and offshore project support. Many of these employees will also support Orsted's growing Power-to-X (P2X) business, which aims to leverage green hydrogen to decarbonize key sectors of the American economy, particularly along the Gulf Coast of Texas.
“We are excited to bolster Orsted's presence in the Lone Star State, which is already home to nearly a dozen of our clean energy projects,” said Melissa Peterson, Vice President and Head of Onshore and P2X Americas at Orsted. “Houston is the ideal location to base our growing Power-to-X operations, especially due to the existing energy workforce that will be needed for the engineering, construction, and operations of Orsted's future facilities.”
Orsted's expansion in Houston is part of its commitment to decarbonizing hard-to-electrify sectors and its overall growth strategy in Texas and the Gulf region. The company is also a member of the Houston-based HyVelocity Hub, selected by the US Department of Energy Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to receive funding for developing new hydrogen projects.
Additionally, Orsted is developing a P2X facility on the Texas Gulf Coast with a capacity of up to 675MW, capable of producing up to 300,000 metric tons of e-methanol annually. This e-methanol will be produced using energy sourced from approximately 1.2GW of new onshore wind and solar generation.
