A French energy company will no longer build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Wilmington.
TotalEnergies signed an agreement Monday with the U.S. Department of the Interior to relinquish its offshore wind leases in North Carolina and New York. Through this agreement, Total will receive nearly $1 billion and instead pivot to oil and gas development in and around Texas.
"Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States," said Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies. "These investments will contribute to supplying Europe with much-needed (liquified natural gas) from the U.S. and provide gas for U.S. data center development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the United States."
Total originally bought the Carolina Long Bay lease in 2022 for $160 million. The project was supposed to generate around 1.3 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 300,000 homes.
The Trump administration characterizes offshore wind as expensive and unreliable. Earlier this year, the administration issued stop-work orders for five offshore wind projects along the East Coast, but judges have since lifted those orders.
The Southeastern Wind Coalition, based in Chapel Hill, called this agreement a "major blow to the U.S. clean energy economy, the offshore wind industry and future grid reliability." The group argues offshore wind provides stable, predictable energy.
"We have seen first hand how offshore wind has bolstered the U.S. grid this winter by providing zero cost fuel during extreme winter weather that caused other fuel prices to spike," said Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition. "Now is the time to be expanding our options, not taking them away. Taking this option away only puts jobs, infrastructure, and future capacity at risk.”
