NEW BEDFORD — DONG Energy, one of three companies vying for Massachusetts' first offshore wind contract, has divested itself of oil and gas production and plans to change its name to reflect a primary focus on green energy, the company announced Monday.

DONG Energy said it plans to ask shareholders to change the name to Ørsted, after Danish scientist Hans Christian Ørsted, who discovered electromagnetism in 1820. The company already has a power station named after him that has been operating since 1920 in Copenhagen, spokeswoman Lauren Burm told The Standard-Times.

DONG Energy has called for a special shareholders' meeting to seek approval of the name change. It wants the name to reflect a "profound strategic transformation from black to green energy" and the divestment of oil and gas production, the company said in a press release.

The name "DONG" stands for the Danish words for "Danish oil and natural gas."

The company also plans to phase out all use of coal by 2023. From 2006 to 2016, it reduced its coal consumption by 73 percent, Burm said.

Asked if the company has any remaining business interests in oil and gas, she said some of its power stations still keep gas as a backup fuel. It also operates the gas-fired Enecogen power station in The Netherlands, the company's only power station outside Denmark, she said.

The old name is "no longer who we are," board chairman Thomas Thune Andersen said in a press release.

"Our vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy," he said. "Climate change is one of the most serious threats to the global ecosystem, and we believe that we

need to change the way we power the world."

— Jennette Barnes