RWE has agreed to walk away from three US offshore wind leases in the New York Bight and off the coasts of California and Louisiana in exchange for a $1.22 billion settlement from the US government.
RWE US Offshore said it had invested more than $1 billion in the leases and development, and said ‘there is no path forward to permit these projects in the US for the foreseeable future’.
The payout will be used to fund other energy projects including an LNG project in Louisiana and natural gas turbine reservations, with 15 gas peaking projects across the US, the German utility said on August 6.
However this is not the end of the story for offshore wind elsewhere, with RWE saying it remained focused on growing offshore activities globally and citing 18 offshore wind farms currently in operation, four under construction, and further projects in development.
This includes a 6.9GW site recently won in the UK’s latest offshore wind auction.
In the same week, the company revealed strong first-half results for its Offshore Wind division, with adjusted EBITDA rising to roughly €810 million in H1 2026, up from €643 million a year earlier, driven by improved wind conditions.
Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance Agenda’
This is the fifth such lease buyback the Trump administration has struck this year, part of a run of settlements the Department of the Interior has framed as reversing what it calls costly climate-driven subsidy commitments.
In April, when the DOI reached an equivalent agreement with TotalEnergies over its Carolina Long Bay lease, the department said: “Under this innovative agreement driven by President Donald J. Trump’s Energy Dominance Agenda, the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.”
A similar June settlement with Duke Energy over its own Carolina Long Bay lease was also framed by DOI as reducing costs and advancing the ‘Energy Dominance Agenda’.
