Clean Energy
Trump Offshore Wind Buyout Deals Grow to $2.5B, With More Tumult
Administration wind energy site lease buyouts include deep-water areas in California, where floating wind technology similar to this turbine, seen in Scotland, was set to be used.
Even as seven states sue the Tromp administration in federal court to challenge the legality of its deal with energy developer TotalEnergies to convert two U.S. East Coast offshore wind site leases valued at $928 million to oil and gas projects in other states, new agreements have been made.
The U.S. Interior Dept. said June 17 it reached a deal to pay developer Invenergy about $765 million to “voluntarily terminate” four ocean tract leases off New Jersey, Maine and central California that were procured in auctions during the Biden administration. Invenergy will redirect the money “toward other domestic energy sources,” the agency said, including natural gas-fired power plants in Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri and geothermal power projects in western states.
Invenergy and partner energyRE had intended to build the 2.4-GW Leading Light Wind project in its offshore lease area adjacent to New York and New Jersey, with power originally intended to support both statss. But it was cancelled in November 2025 due to cost and supply chain challenges “that have made the development of new offshore wind energy projects extremely difficult,” according to a state filing by the developers. Invenergy's other lease areas, two in the Gulf of Maine and one off Morro Bay, Calif., had potential of 4.8 GW in power capacity.
In agreeing to the Trump buyout, which did not include interest paid on wind lease payments or incremental development costs, Invenergy hinted the action would avoid a battle with an administration more supportive of fossil fuel emergy.
The company “will deploy additional capital into projects that can be delivered on a commercially reasonable timeline and meet customer demand while continuing to evaluate opportunities as market conditions evolve,” said Daniel Runyan, Invenergy senior vice president for development.
“Rather than supporting large-scale, homegrown energy solutions which are already delivering savings for Northeast residents, these actions undermine local economies and threaten American jobs and energy affordability,” said offshore wind advocacy group Oceantic Network. It estimates that cancelling one 1-GW offshore wind project permanently removes up to $9.5 billion in U.S, economic output.
But Invenergy is still proceeding to build Grain Belt Express, an estimated $11-billion high-voltage transmission line set to cross 800 miles in four Midwest states to deliver solar and wind power to the eastern U.S., despite administration cancellation last year of a $4.9-billion federal loan guarantee. Now as a privately financed project, preconstruction and engineering is underway on the project's first phase in Kansas and Missouri. The line also will be built in Indiana and Illinois. Quanta Services and Kiewit Energy Group are major first-phase contractors, under $1.7 billion in combined contracts awarded last year.
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Invenergy Deal Follows Others
The Invenergy wind buyout deal follows one reached several weeks earlier with developers of Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind to give up their offshore wind leases off New York-New Jersey and California, respectively, and redirect investment of about $885 million—to "LNG projects, oil and gas assets and other energy infrastructure" in Gulf Coast areas, Interior said. Funds include about $765 million for the Bluepoint Wind lease and $120 million for Golden State, set for the Morro Bay. Calif., wind energy area. Both developers then “decided not to pursue any new offshore wind developments in the U.S.” Interior claimed.
In its TotalEnergies deal, Interior said funding from cancelled leases offshore of New York-Jersey and North Carolina would be diverted to build new trains at the Rio Grande LNG terminal project in Texas, develop “upstream conventional oil" in the Gulf of Mexico and into shale gas production. Interior Secretary Douglas Burgum has said the agreement was voluntary.
According to Interior, the settlement agreements. estimated to now total $2.5 billion, would be paid from the U.S.Treasury Dept.taxpayer-funded Judgment Fund. But according to the June 2 suit by attorneys general form New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont, "no statute authorizes Federal Defendants to use a sham settlement agreement to unlawfully cancel an offshore wind lease and redirect the money paid for the lease to a separate, unauthorized use favored by the President."
Sierra Club Senior Advisor Nancy Pyne called the agreements “shady backroom deals.”
Meanwhile, TotalEnergies may have more difficulty trying to recover recent offshore wind energy investments in Germany, as it seeks to withdraw from one project due to what it said is delays in grid connections and lagging economic conditions, according to European press reports.
TotalEnergies said it is in talks with the German government related to an estimated $7 billion payment for a 1.5-GW site won in a 2023 auction, according to the reports. The firm said it is "actively working on the realization of our projects" and is seeking "practical solutions".
