Trump Has Once Again Paid Off Offshore Wind Developers to Quit

 Last month, following a string of legal defeats over his efforts to halt construction of offshore wind turbines through regulatory fiat, President Donald Trump tried something new: Paying developers to quit. The plan worked: French energy giant TotalEnergies agreed to abandon its two offshore wind farms in exchange for $1 billion from the federal government, with the promise that it would reinvest that money in U.S. oil and gas development. Reporting by Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo later showed that the legal reasoning behind the federal government's cash offer was shaky, and that the actual text of the agreement contained no definite assurances that the company would invest any more than it was already planning to. Last week, I told you that more deals were in the works, including with another French company, the utility Engie. Now the Trump administration has confirmed the rumors.

On Monday, the Department of the Interior announced plans to spend a little under $1 billion — a combined $885 million — to recoup the leasing costs developers already paid from a proposed wind farm off New Jersey and another off California. BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners “has committed” to reinvest up to $765 million into a U.S.-based liquified natural gas project. In exchange, the Interior Department said it will cancel the firm’s lease for the Bluepoint Wind offshore project in federal waters off New Jersey and New York “and reimburse the company’s bid payment in the amount invested in the LNG project.” As part of the deal, Bluepoint Wind “has decided not to pursue any new offshore wind developments in the United States,” the agency said. Likewise, the floating wind farm developer Golden State Wind agreed to abandon its lease located in the federally designated Morro Bay Wind Energy Area located 20 miles off San Luis Obispo County. The company had hoped to build one of the first offshore wind facilities in California where the continental shelf drops off too steeply for the kinds of wind farms sited on the nation’s Atlantic coast. Under the deal, the developer can recover “approximately $120 million in lease fees after an investment has been made of an equal amount in the development of U.S. oil and gas assets, energy infrastructure, and/or LNG projects along the Gulf Coast.” As part of the agreement, Golden State has opted out of pursuing new offshore wind projects. In a statement, Michael Brown, the chief executive of Ocean Winds North America, credited for “the clarity they have provided with this decision and deal.” The 50% owner of both Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind added: “Our priority remains disciplined capital allocation and delivering reliable energy solutions that create long-term value for ratepayers, partners, and shareholders.”

2. Energy Department unfreezes $430 million for hydropower plants

The Department of Energy said Monday it will soon restart talks to pay out nearly $430 million in payments to American hydroelectric projects that were promised under a Biden-era program. The Trump administration paused the negotiations as the agency reorganized its hydro-related programs under the newly named Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright reassessed droves of investments his predecessors made into clean energy projects. The funding aims to support 293 projects at 212 facilities through a program to maintain and enhance the nation’s fleet of dams. “American hydropower is a key component of this Administration’s vision for an affordable, reliable energy system,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson said in a statement. “These actions will modernize our hydropower fleet, bolster our domestic workforce, and bring us closer to realizing that vision.”

The future Fall Line Fusion Power Station (Tesla Model S not included).

Hydropower is a renewable power source conservative critics of wind and solar tend to like because it operates 24/7 and provides large-scale, long-duration energy storage through pumped-storage systems. Similarly, commercializing fusion power, the so-called holy grail of clean energy, is another technological goal the Trump administration shares with advocates of a lower-carbon future. On Tuesday morning, Commonwealth Fusion Systems became the first fusion power plant developer to apply to join a major grid operator. By submitting its paperwork to link its generators to PJM Interconnection, the largest U.S. wholesale electricity market, Commonwealth Fusion is showing it’s “on track to connect to the electricity grid in time to deliver power in the early 2030s.” The company also announced that it had named the first 400-megawatt ARC power plant it’s building in Chesterfield County, Virginia, the Fall Line Fusion Power Station. The name is a reference to the geological boundary where Virginia’s elevated Piedmont region drops to the Tidewater coastal plain, creating rapids on the James River that Virginians historically built mills on to harness the power from falling water.