President Donald Trump’s campaign against offshore wind has entered a new phase: paying developers to abandon their projects. After two companies accepted nearly $2 billion to scrap wind farms along the East and West coasts, industry observers say other leases could soon be on the chopping block.
The deals are part of Trump’s broader repudiation of offshore wind in favor of bolstering U.S. oil and gas development.
“We’ve heard from multiple sources that other developers are in discussion with the administration to cancel leases,” said Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind strategist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, speaking during a recent webinar about U.S. offshore wind developments.
More than 25 U.S. offshore wind leases lack permits to construct a project, said Feinberg, who added that developers are blocked from getting those approvals because of the Trump administration’s anti-renewable energy policies.
“That means there are a significant number of leases that could be vulnerable to deals like these,” she said.
Now, wind experts are on the lookout for other projects that could secure a Trump deal. Possible contenders include offshore wind projects in similar locations, in an early stage of development and that carry a hefty price tag, according to analysis by POLITICO’s E&E News, based on interviews with more than a half-dozen renewable energy advocates and analysts.
Some observers also noted that companies would likely need to have oil and gas ventures that they could shift funding to, as a condition of a deal with the administration.
The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether it plans to offer additional deals to offshore wind developers. The deals the department has already struck have faced scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers over the administration’s justification for and plans to pay out the settlements.
That legal scrutiny might dampen some developers’ enthusiasm for pursuing their own deals, some observers said. Companies with strong ties to Democratic-led states might also be leery of jeopardizing those relationships by ending projects that are being factored into future resource planning.
The Trump administration has been keen on limiting offshore wind development from the start. After returning to the White House last year, the president issued an executive order to block new offshore wind approvals, and Interior launched stop-work orders for five offshore wind projects.
After those efforts failed in court, Interior took a new tack.
The department announced in March that it would pay French company TotalEnergies $928 million to cancel two wind projects off the New York and North Carolina coasts. In exchange, the company agreed to focus its investments on liquefied natural gas in the Gulf Coast. The following month, Interior reached a similar deal with Ocean Winds to refund the company’s $915 million investment for two wind projects off the New York and California coasts. The company also agreed to focus investments on “conventional energy projects.”
Timothy Fox, managing director at the research firm ClearView Energy Partners, said Total’s deal with the Trump administration is “constructive” if the company wanted to move away from wind, but it isn’t good for states trying to meet renewable energy targets.
“President Trump has been a fervent and frequent opponent of offshore wind, and his administration has demonstrated an eagerness to constrain the industry to the few projects that are in service or [have] almost completed construction — and to constrain that industry even after President Trump leaves office,” said Fox.
Trump’s efforts may be successful, he said.
“Project developers, and importantly, financiers are likely to be wary of investing in such a capital-intensive industry with such demonstrable high election risk,” Fox said.
Trump’s wind deals not only undercut states’ clean energy goals but also threaten companies’ investments in local communities, renewable energy proponents said.
When Ocean Winds’ now-canceled California project was in the works, building trades invested in new apprenticeship programs to prepare a workforce for an emerging industry, said Joshua Medrano, executive secretary-treasurer of the Tri County Building and Construction Trades Council. The council represents two dozen craft unions across central California that build infrastructure and energy projects.
“It sends a damaging signal to workers and the community about whether long-term industrial energy policy commitments can really be relied upon,” Medrano said during the webinar with Feinberg of NRDC.
Developers that paid top dollar for their leases — but have yet to reach construction — could have the greatest incentive to follow in the footsteps of Total and Ocean Winds. Such leases are concentrated along the New York, New Jersey and California coasts, according to industry observers interviewed for this story.
Leases closest to already-canceled projects, including one early-stage project off the coast of the Carolinas, could also be at risk of cancellation.
The Trump administration’s apparent willingness to allow developers to pursue some offshore wind projects while abandoning others may sweeten the pot for some companies. Interior’s deal last month with Ocean Winds to refund the company for its investments in two mid-Atlantic and California projects did not mention the developer’s most viable Massachusetts project, SouthCoast Wind.
The move marked a change in approach from the Trump administration’s first deal with Total, in which the company vowed not to pursue any future wind projects in the United States and instead agreed to bolster existing investments in fossil fuel infrastructure.
Developers of offshore wind projects thought to be best-positioned for cancellation deals from the Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment on whether they were seeking or planned to seek a settlement. EDF Renewables declined to comment.
While the Trump administration works to cancel some offshore wind farms, projects closer to completion have continued to build up the nation’s renewable energy supply. Such projects are considered unlikely candidates for a Trump deal, given their advanced stage of development.
In April, the research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie released a report finding that offshore wind was executing projects faster than previously forecast, with 6 gigawatts expected to come online by next year. That’s enough energy to power about 2.5 million homes each year.
Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind have started producing power as the projects remain under construction, and Revolution Wind is on track for commissioning in the second half of this year, while Sunrise Wind is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2027, the firm found. All of those projects survived the Trump administration’s earlier round of stop-work orders.
“The data is overwhelming that [these projects] are providing reliable and affordable power, and that power is not subject to the price shocks that we’re seeing due to geopolitical changes,” Feinberg said.
Dominion Energy, for example, has predicted its project off the Virginia coast will save ratepayers $5 billion in fuel costs in its first decade of operations.
“Our technical potential is capable of generating more than five times what the U.S. consumes annually in electricity, and this energy can be generated where we need it,” Feinberg said, noting that 40 percent of the nation’s population lives within an hour of the coast.
“It’s against this backdrop that the Trump administration has decided to escalate attacks to strangle this industry,” she said.
Here are some projects that renewable energy advocates and analysts say could be vulnerable to cancellation.
New York Bight
The triangular stretch of ocean between Long Island and New Jersey was home to two of the projects (Total’s Attentive Energy and Ocean Winds’ Bluepoint Wind) that secured cancellation deals from the Trump administration. The following projects are located nearby and are in a similar stage of development.
- RWE’s and National Grid’s joint 3.3 GW Community Offshore Wind, located next to Total’s canceled lease.
- Invenergy’s 2 GW Leading Light Wind, which is being developed in partnership with energyRE.
- EDF Renewables’ 1.5 GW Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind.
California
The waters off the Golden State’s northern and central coasts contain costly offshore leases and were the location of Ocean Winds’ now-canceled Golden State Wind project. The following projects are similarly situated.
- RWE’s 1.6 GW floating Canopy Offshore Wind, located about 20 miles from California’s northern coast.
- Invenergy’s 2 GW Even Keel Wind, located about 20 miles off the state’s central coast.
- Equinor’s 2 GW Atlas Wind, located about 60 miles from the state’s central coast.
Carolina Long Bay
In addition to its project in the New York Bight, Total earlier this year received about $133 million from the federal government to abandon a lease off the North and South Carolina coasts. The company had planned to collaborate with Duke Energy on wind development in the area. The following project is located nearby.
- Duke subsidiary Cinergy’s 1.6 GW project located off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Kelsey Tamborrino and Benjamin Storrow contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this report described Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind as a joint venture with Shell New Energies. Shell withdrew from the project last year.
