EDP Group shares suffer €930 million wipe off after Trump criticism of renewable energy sources

EDP and EDP Renováveis saw share values fall €937 million on Wednesday after Donald Trump’s severe criticisms over wind turbine energy.

Donald Trump said he didn’t want new wind farms in the US and EDP share values plummeted on Wednesday’s session.

“It’s the most expensive energy there is. It’s much, much more expensive than clean natural gas, so let’s try a policy where there are no wind farms built,” Donald Trump said at a conference in Florida, as quoted by Reuters.

EDP has invested heavily in renewables in the US via its renewables subsidiary EDP Renewables. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, EDPR has 61 wind farms, 17 solar parks, and eight regional offices across North America, EDPR NA has developed more than 11,000 megawatts (MW) and operates more than 10,000 MW of onshore utility-scale renewable energy projects.

But Donald Trump believes wind farms: “…dirty our country, they’re dirtying the whole country, it’s like throwing garbage into the countryside. They are rusting, rotting, closing, falling… And they put new ones next to them because no one wants to take them down. It’s too expensive to knock them down,” he added. (Thankfully, he didn’t accuse the company of “eating the dogs!”

“They don’t work without a subsidy. We do not want energy that needs a subsidy,” he said in statements reproduced by “The Hill”.

EDP Renováveis shares sank almost 5% to €9.28, with 1.63 million shares traded, above the average of 1.12 million shares traded over the last three months.

EDP lost almost 3.3% to €3.067, with more than 15 million shares traded, above the average of 8.3 million in the last quarter.

EDP has devalued more than 30% in the space of a year, with EDPR sinking 43% over the same period.