TotalEnergies halts planned New York offshore wind farm, cites Trump win as reason
TotalEnergies has reportedly paused development of the Attentive Energy wind farm it planned to build off the coast of New York and New Jersey, CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Tuesday at an energy industry conference in London.
“I have decided to put the project on pause,” TotalEnergies’ CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at the Energy Intelligence Forum, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters.
The decision is one of the first tangible signs of a halt in investment in renewable power sources due to the anticipated policies of the incoming Trump administration. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind energy development “on day one” of his next term starting in January 2025.
TotalEnergies could revive the project if a more environmentally friendly US president takes office in the future, Pouyanne said. The company won the rights to develop the area in a 2022 auction.
The 3,000-megawatt Attentive Energy project south of New York Harbor could be operational in the 2030s according to developers.
The project is still in the early stages of permitting with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, although developers have obtained offshore leasing rights from BOEM.
Pouyanne indicated TotalEnergies may wait for political winds to shift again. “I said to my team, the project in New York, we’ll see that in four years,” he said, Bloomberg reported. “But the advantage is it’s only for four years.”
Trump’s campaign promise to end offshore wind projects on “day one” of his next presidency has cast a pall over the fledging US offshore wind energy industry. After lukewarm support during Trump’s first administration, his Department of Interior officials turned sharply in their last months, trying to cancel permits for the Vineyard Wind project off southern New England.
In early 2021 President Biden’s new administration swiftly restarted Vineyard Wind permitting. A new Trump administration can upend the process again, by blocking permits and new lease sales.
The move by TotalEnergies could foreshadow difficult decisions by other offshore wind developers and domestic US companies who have mobilized to provide the supply chain to offshore wind power.
Wind industry advocates are scrambling to make their case that offshore wind is good for Trump’s stated goals of rebuilding US industry and jobs.
The Attentive Energy project, launched in October 2023, is a joint venture in which TotalEnergies holds a 56% stake, alongside partners Corio Generation (27.7%) and Rise Light & Power (16.3%).
