TotalEnergies confirms Oregon floating offshore wind split from Simply Blue Group
TotalEnergies confirms Oregon floating offshore wind split from Simply Blue Group | Windpower Monthly
French oil major TotalEnergies has confirmed it has ended plans to pursue 3GW of floating offshore wind off the coast of Oregon with developer Simply Blue Group.
The pair had planned to develop three 1GW offshore wind farms off the coast of southern and central Oregon through their Deep Blue Pacific Wind joint venture.
However, a TotalEnergies spokesperson told Windpower Monthly the oil major and Simply Blue Group had ended their partnership “following a shift in the parent companies’ global offshore wind strategies”.
They added: “The renewable energy sector, and in particular offshore wind, continues to evolve and holds tremendous potential for sustainable growth and helping the US meet its clean power goals.”
The spokesperson described floating wind power as a “less mature technology”, and added: “The current challenge consists of scaling up this technology to reduce costs.”
However, the spokesperson noted that TotalEnergies recently launched a pilot project to use floating wind to power an offshore oil and gas platform off the coast of Scotland.
Windpower Monthly has contacted Simply Blue for comment.
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is due to hold the first offshore wind lease auction for Oregon next month. Five development groups have been pre-qualified to bid in this auction – though TotalEnergies and Simply Blue’s Deep Blue Pacific Wind tie-up was notable for its absence from this shortlist.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.