Installation view of offshore wind pilot turbines on the Virginia coast under construction in 2020. Duke Energy, located on the southern tip of the North Carolina coast, accepted a $129 million takeover from federal taxpayers, citing the president’s aversion to renewable energy. Photo: Dominion Energy
Duke Energy has agreed to terminate its wind leases off the coast of Brunswick County, instead pledging to reinvest funds into grid enhancements and additional power generation.
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Monday that the Charlotte-based company is terminating its offshore wind lease in the Carolina Long Bay Wind Area, about 35 miles offshore, south of Bald Head Island.
“This settlement allows Duke Energy to refocus $129 million on ways to directly benefit customers and communities in the Carolinas,” Kodwo Gharty-Tagoe, executive vice president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy Carolinas, said in the release. “Under this agreement, Duke Energy will reinvest approximately $129 million in additional power generation capacity, which may include driving new nuclear and natural gas generation and strengthening our electric grid to enhance reliability, support continued growth in the Carolinas, and keep costs as low as possible.”
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The company’s decision leaves more than 110,000 acres of wind power in Carolina Long Bay tenant-free amid President Donald Trump’s push to phase out renewable energy projects and replace them with fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In March, Total Energy accepted a $1 billion federal purchase of wind energy leases off the New York and North Carolina coasts, including about half of the Carolina-Long Bay wind energy area. The France-based global energy company announced it would invest the refunded funds in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects.
Duke Energy paid $155 million to lease the remaining half of the offshore wind farm area in May 2022.
“President Trump’s vision to unleash affordable, reliable American energy to our nation’s communities and use common sense to put Americans first is being implemented,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a Monday announcement. “Duke Energy will be able to turn national security concerns into projects that reduce costs for customers in North Carolina and surrounding states.”
The Carolina Long Bay Wind Energy District project is estimated to generate up to 3 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power approximately 657,000 homes, and provide more than $4 billion in net economic impact.
Although it took years for decommissioned projects to be able to feed electricity generated offshore into the onshore grid, wind energy proponents argue that it is a stable and predictable source of energy.
“We are disappointed that another offshore wind opportunity has been eliminated in North Carolina,” Southeastern Wind Coalition President Katherine Collins said in a release. “At a time when electricity demand is rapidly increasing and strain on grid reliability increases, we need to add energy options, not take them away. It is unfortunate that the federal government continues to pick winners and losers in the energy sector, especially given the strong performance of the four existing offshore wind farms currently operating in U.S. waters.”
Offshore wind leases are still active along North Carolina’s north coast off Kitty Hawk. Those leases were purchased several years ago by Avangrid Renewables and Dominion Energy, the latter of which is finishing construction on a 2.6 gigawatt project about 30 miles east of Virginia Beach.
The court recently reversed Trump administration actions to curb U.S. offshore wind development, including an order last December halting work in five offshore wind energy regions on the East Coast, including Dominion Energy’s Hampton Roads, Virginia-based project.
However, these rulings do not prevent the administration from continuing to target offshore wind projects.
Since announcing the deal with Total Energy, the Interior Department has finalized similar agreements with several other companies to terminate leases offshore in California, Maine, New Jersey, and New York.
In early June, New York’s attorney general joined the attorneys general of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont in challenging Total Energy’s federal takeover.
In a statement, Chris Herndon, president of the North Carolina Sierra Club chapter, urged state Attorney General Jeff Jackson to “review the legality of this ‘deal’ and consider joining other states in challenging the Trump administration in court.”
“Duke Energy and Donald Trump are exacerbating the energy affordability crisis plaguing families and small businesses across North Carolina,” Herndon said in the release. “It is shameful that Duke Energy is walking away from an affordable, reliable offshore wind project that the state has counted on to generate family-sustaining wages for workers and fixed-price, clean electricity that supports the state’s economy.”
Pasha Feinberg, an offshore wind strategist at the international nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said Duke Energy’s deal with the federal government is a “losing proposition.”
“We need more power, not less,” Feinberg said in the release. “Cancelling clean energy projects is self-defeating. Paying back companies to abandon them is just ridiculous. The Trump administration is wasting money by paying companies that don’t produce energy. It’s long past time for the Trump administration to end the war on new energy so customers’ rates don’t keep going up and our country can meet its growing power needs.”
