The company intends to use the settlement proceeds to fund the construction of an LNG terminal in Louisiana.
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has agreed to pay a U.S. subsidiary of a German company $1.22 billion to cancel three offshore wind leases in the United States.
RWE U.S. Offshore reached a settlement agreement with the DOI to relinquish its offshore wind leases off the coasts of California, Louisiana, and New York, while also resolving all claims against the federal government on this issue, RWE Americas said in an Aug. 6 statement. RWE Americas is owned by RWE Group, a renewable energy company based in Germany.
According to the company, it had already invested more than $1 billion toward these leases and related project development. However, “after careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future,” RWE Americas said.
The company determined that this course of action was in the best interest of its stakeholders. The resolution also allows it to “direct resources toward energy projects that can be advanced with certainty,” the company said.
Despite canceling the offshore wind lease agreements, RWE Americas said it was committed to deploying capital across the United States.
For instance, the company plans to use proceeds from the settlement to fund the construction of an LNG terminal in Louisiana. RWE Americas aims to invest $900 million to secure a 16 percent stake in the project.
Moreover, the company aims to invest roughly 17 billion euros (about $19.6 billion) over the next six years in the United States to increase its power generation capacity from roughly 13 gigawatts to 22 gigawatts by 2031.
In an Aug. 6 statement, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) criticized the Trump administration for spending taxpayer dollars to end clean energy initiatives, including RWE’s offshore projects.
According to the statement, the Trump administration has spent $3.918 billion in taxpayer funds across 12 projects in settlement agreements with companies involved in clean energy agreements.
Trump is “cancelling projects that provide unlimited free energy once online, redirecting billions in taxpayer money to expensive dirty energy sources that pad the pockets of his Big Oil donors while polluting your community,” Schumer said in the statement.
In addition to RWE, the administration has paid $928 million to TotalEnergies, $885 million to Ocean Winds, $765 million to Invenergy, and $129 million to Duke to cancel clean energy projects, according to the statement.
