TotalEnergies wins maritime lease to develop wind farm offshore North Carolina

TotalEnergies has been named a winner by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management of maritime lease area OCS-A 0545 in the United States, as part of the Carolina Long Bay auction held on Wednesday.

This bid for the development of an offshore wind farm in the Carolina Long Bay area offshore North Carolina was won for a consideration of $160 million by TotalEnergies. 

Located 20 nautical miles (37 km) from the coast, the lease covers a 120 square nautical miles area (222 sq km) that will generate a capacity of more than 1 GW, enough to provide power to more than 300,000 homes. The project is expected to come online by 2030. 

This announcement follows the award in February 2022 of a lease to develop a 3 GW wind farm off the coast of New York and New Jersey, United States.

“Being awarded this lease, our second offshore wind project in the U.S., demonstrates the strength of our commitment to the country and to our transformation in a multi energy company,” said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies. “This project adds to our portfolio of more than 10 GW gross capacity of renewable projects in operation, in construction and in development in the U.S. It is one more step towards our objective of reaching 100 GW of renewable electricity generation worldwide by 2030.”

The Carolina Long Bay project is part of the U.S. government's goal to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind in the U.S. by 2030, in response to the climate challenge.