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Duke Energy and TotalEnergies win US offshore wind energy auction
18/5/2022
The US Department of the Interior (DoI) has announced the results from its wind energy auction in the Carolina Long Bay area, the second major offshore wind lease sale this year and a significant milestone towards achieving the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) offered two lease areas covering 110,091 acres in the Carolina Long Bay area offshore North Carolina and South Carolina. If fully developed, the leases could result in about 1.3 GW of offshore wind energy, enough to power about 500,000 homes. The sale drew competitive winning bids from TotalEnergies and Duke Energy totalling $315mn.
The Carolina Long Bay offshore wind auction included a new 20% credit for bidders that committed to a monetary contribution to programmes or initiatives that support workforce training programmes for the offshore wind industry, the development of a US domestic supply chain for the offshore wind energy industry, or both. This credit will result in $42mn for these programmes or initiatives, says the DoI.
‘Securing this lease [OCS-A 0546] creates optionality for future offshore wind if the North Carolina Utilities Commission determines it is part of the least cost path to achieve 70% carbon reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050,’ says Stephen De May, Duke Energy’s North Carolina President. If all federal and state regulatory approvals are obtained, the project could come onstream in 2030–2032.
TotalEnergies was awarded the OCS-A 0545 lease area. If approved, the project is expected to come online by 2030. Earlier this year, in February 2022, the company secured a lease to develop a 3 GW wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey, US. Commenting on the latest award, Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, says: ‘This adds to our portfolio of more than 10 GW gross capacity of renewable projects in operation, in construction and in development in the US. It is one more step towards our objective of reaching 100 GW of renewable electricity generation worldwide by 2030.’
TotalEnergies also reports that it has started construction of the Eolmed wind project, located off the coast of Gruissan and Port la Nouvelle, in the Occitan region, France. Operated by Qair, in which TotalEnergies has a 20% stake, the 30 MW wind farm is due to be commissioned by 2024.
