UPDATE - TotalEnergies plans over 1 GW in Carolina Long Bay lease area

Offshore wind farm. Author: axelivarsson. License: Creative Commons, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

French energy major TotalEnergies SE (EPA:TTE) today confirmed it has won a 120-square-mile (222 sq km) lease area in the latest US offshore wind auction and expects to develop at least 1 GW of capacity there.

The company said in a statement it plans to complete the offshore wind park by the end of the decade.

As the Department of the Interior (DOI) announced this week, TotalEnergies was awarded maritime lease area OCS-A 0545 in the Carolina Long Bay offshore North Carolina, after bidding USD 160 million (EUR 151.5m).

“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 US. It is one more step towards our objective of reaching 100 GW of renewable electricity generation worldwide by 2030,” said Patrick Pouyanne, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.

In February, the interior department held a similar auction for acreage in the New York Bight, which lasted three days and drew competitive winning bids from six companies totalling USD 4.37 billion. TotalEnergies won a lease to develop a 3-GW wind farm in that auction.

Apart from its US projects, the French energy group is also developing bottom-fixed and floating offshore wind farms in the UK, South Korea, Taiwan and France. It said it plans to also take part in tenders in Norway and Poland.

The other provisional winner in the Carolina Long Bay auction is Duke Energy Renewables Wind LLC.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.947)

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