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Archive for the ‘Wind Energy’ Category

GE Vernova: A Tale of Two Businesses

Posted in natural gas, Offshore Wind, Wind Energy, tagged , , , , , , on May 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Gas turbine business soars
wind turbine business slumps

Steve Milloy, National Center for Public Policy Research: GE Vernova is losing money on wind turbines and will continue to lose money for the foreseeable future. Wind losses are real and guided to persist at ~$400 million in 2026.

On the other hand, GE Vernova’s gas turbine business is booming. The gas turbine backlog and slot reservations surged from 83 GW to 100 GW in Q1, with a target of at least 110 GW by year-end. There is strong demand for reliable, dispatchable power to support data centers and grid stability. This segment is a major profit driver.

Milloy is asking GE Vernova shareholders to support the following resolution:

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors of GE Vernova Inc. publish a report within the next year—prepared at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary or competitively sensitive information—assessing the extent to which the Corporation’s sustainability goals have been authorized and maintained on the basis of net-present-value and return-on-investment calculations.

The company’s Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that shareholders vote “AGAINST” this proposal, arguing that the Company already provides comprehensive, transparent disclosures on sustainability‑related risks, opportunities, goals, and progress.

Meanwhile, GE Vernova remains locked up in an ugly dispute with Vineyard Wind and is still prevented by court order from exiting that project.

We are approaching the 2 year anniversary of the GEV blade failure that rocked the offshore world.

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Offshore wind: more buyer’s remorse for TotalEnergies; this time in Germany

Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged , , , , , , , on May 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Total: „Vom Winde verweht“

Perhaps the wind industry’s problems are more fundamental than those presented by US policies. Why else would TotalEnergies, the company that jumped at the chance to annul its costly romance with US offshore wind, be looking for a way out of its German commitments?

NDR / Süddeutsche Zeitung: TotalEnergies is seeking to quit a major offshore wind energy project in Germany for which it offered to pay six billion euros in a 2023 state auction, arguing that slow grid connections and a deteriorating economic environment have triggered the decision.

According to the reports, energy company BP, which also won a successful multi-billion euro bid in 2023, could seek a similar opt-out. After transferring its offshore wind activities into a subsidiary in 2025, the new company is said to be scaling back and ultimately planning to shut down its offices in Berlin and Hamburg.

Does this sound familiar? The mood in Germany’s offshore wind industry and elsewhere in Europe has shifted markedly in recent years. While bidders in offshore auctions in 2023 were ready to pay billions of euros for the right to implement new projects, a subsequent auction round in 2025 failed to attract a single bid. According to offshore wind industry association BWO, the meager expansion of less than 1 GW annually since 2020 was mainly triggered by a spike in investment and capital costs.

Revisiting some quotes published following the 2023 German wind auction:

Environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH, not the best acronym in English 😉) called the result a “quantum leap” for offshore wind energy. “Wind power at sea is now so economically attractive that project developers are outbidding each other for access to marine areas,” said DUH executive director Sascha Müller-Kraenner. “The fairy tale of expensive green electricity is thus finally off the table.” (This quote didn’t age well!)

“The sums are obscene,” an industry source, who was part of a non-successful bid, told business daily Handelsblatt. (Irrational bidding similar to what we saw during the 2022 U.S. Atlantic Wind Sale.)

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John Smith’s comments on BOEM’s proposed revisions to decommissioning financial assurance requirements

Posted in California, energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , on May 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The comment period for BOEM’s proposed revisions to decommissioning financial assurance requirements closes on Friday, May 8th.

John Smith’s comments have been officially submitted to Regulations.gov, and are attached for your convenience. Nice work by John.

My comments are being finalized and will be submitted and posted soon.

042926 JB Smith Comments on Proposed Changes to Bonding RulesDownload

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Ørsted investors worried about Equinor’s change in emphasis. Implications for US wind leases?

Posted in Norway, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, tagged , , , , , , on May 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Equinor’s Atlantic wind leases

Equinor has cut planned investments in renewable energy by roughly EUR 3.5bn for 2026–2027, while the company maintains and expects growth in oil and gas production.

Cheap shot from panicked Ørsted investor:

“From a sustainability perspective, it’s certainly sad that one of the most ‘green’ fossil fuel companies now turns out to have merely been a ‘tourist’ in the green sector, but unfortunately, that’s just the way things are these days,” says Anders Schelde, investment chief at AkademikerPension, according to Finans.

Perhaps the premium for climate virtue signaling has shrunk, and Equinor, like other energy giants, is making a prudent business decision for its shareholders, which include the Norwegian govt.

Meanwhile, what are the implications for Equinor’s offshore wind investments in the US? Equinor’s embattled Empire Wind project is probably too far along to reverse course. Their Central Atlantic (Lease 0557) and California (Lease 0563, Atlas Wind) may be a different story. However, buyback negotiations would be complicated by the Empire Wind situation, and perhaps by the Norwegian government’s 2/3 ownership. On the other hand, Equinor is a significant oil and gas leaseholder in the Gulf of America, so they would have ample options for investing wind lease rebates.

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“Win-Win” wind lease buybacks!

Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Bluepoint Wind Lease 0537 owned by Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of BlackRock, and Ocean Wind (Engie, France and EDP Renewables, Portugal)
Golden State Wind Lease 0564 owned by Ocean Wind (Engie, France and EDP Renewables, Portugal) and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

The Dept. of the Interior (DOI) has announced wind lease buyback agreements with Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind.

These are mutually beneficial “Win-Win” agreements. Bluepoint and Golden State benefit by escaping bad business decisions:

  • Bluepoint massively overpaid ($765 million) for Atlantic lease 0537 during the brief irrational exuberance era of the offshore wind program. The intense bidding was driven by the lure of subsidies, guaranteed power sales, unprecedented Federal and State promotion, peak climate activism, inattention to mounting public opposition, and irrational expectations regarding the role of offshore wind in powering the economy.
  • The value of Atlantic wind leases declined by 99.4% between 2022 and 2024, and this was before the Presidential election!
  • The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities has moved to terminate a $1 billion agreement to develop infrastructure to bring power from offshore wind farms to the grid.
  • Golden State bid $150 million for a wind lease that will require floating turbines. The 50 MW Kincardine Offshore Windfarm, which is billed as the “world’s largest floating wind farm,” experienced a £30 million loss in 2023 following a £18 million loss in 2022. Another floating wind project, Hywind Scotland, had to be taken offline for 4 months for maintenance after less than 6 years of operation. BOEM was forced to “postpone” the Oregon wind sale given the absence of bidders.
  • Significant work had not yet begun on either the Bluepoint or Golden State projects.
  • Many in Morro Bay and elsewhere along the Central Coast of California are not pleased with the attempt to “industrialize the coast.” Opposition to offshore wind projects is now well established along the Atlantic Coast.
  • Even in Europe, the value of offshore wind leases has diminished. A Dec. 2024 Danish offering received no bids. See this explanation.
  • The companies get to invest their inflated wind dollars in profitable energy projects without penalty. What prudent executive wouldn’t jump at the deal?
  • Waiting for the next Administration is not likely to improve the fundamental economics of offshore wind development, and increased subsidies are not popular.
  • A pro-wind govt would facilitate permitting, but is unlikely to buyback existing leases.

The Administration also benefits:

  • Two more wind leases are off the books.
  • Removing one of three leases could significantly affect the economics of Central Coast (CA) wind development.
  • Agreements were necessary because it’s difficult to cancel leases, and compensation would be required. If settled in court, the compensation could easily exceed the lease purchase price.
  • The companies agreed not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States.
  • The rebates will be invested in projects favored by the Administration.

Question: Are the partners and parent companies also precluded from investing in offshore wind projects or just the Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind entities? If BlackRock, EDP, and Engie can no longer make such investments, that is a big deal. This is especially true given the agreement with Total, Vineyard Wind’s problems, Orsted’s financial challenges, BP and Shell’s apparent exit from the US offshore wind market, and Equinor’s reduced renewable energy ambitions.

Finally, a December 7, 2022 release by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board heralding the 50% partnership in Golden State Wind might be of interest to our Canadian readers. That bad investment can now be removed from the books.

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Vineyard Wind threatens ‘wind farm graveyard’

Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, tagged , , , on April 18, 2026| 2 Comments »

The Constance Gee letter (pasted below) is entertaining no matter where you stand on the Vineyard Wind debacle. A couple of quotes 😉:

It’s been a mess from the beginning and in a mess it will end, but the current “he said she said” over who owes more millions to whom is especially trashy.

Poor Vineyard Wind doesn’t have a clue how to service and maintain the 62 turbines they’ve hammered into the seabed 15 miles off our coast, and they are upset that GE Renewables won’t hand over the troubleshooting manual.

The Vineyard Wind Court filing is accessible here.

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Per Vineyard Wind litigation, 68 of the 72 GE blades were defective. Related regulatory issues need to be considered.

Posted in accidents, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 15, 2026| 1 Comment »

damaged Vineyard Wind turbine – Cape Cod Times photo

Excerpt from p.3 of Vineyard Wind’s suit against GE Renewables (attached):

“As was widely reported in national and local news, in July 2024, one of the GER offshore blades collapsed and fell into the waters off Nantucket, necessitating a massive environmental cleanup, and a six-month construction hiatus during which GER performed a “root cause” analysis. That analysis concluded that 68 of the 72 GER blades installed at the Project (nearly all manufactured by GER in Gaspé, Canada) were also defective because they were inadequately bonded together, and were so poorly made that they were beyond repair. GER’s remediation plan required it to remove all of the blades and to replace all Gaspé blades with others manufactured at a different facility in Cherbourg, France.

Regulatory issues of concern:

    vineyard_geDownload

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    Vineyard Wind and GE Renewables clash heightens decommissioning financial assurance concerns

    Posted in decommissioning, energy policy, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on April 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

    Three wind turbines, including one with a damaged blade, at the Vineyard Wind offshore site in November 2024. Credit: Eleonora Bianchi / The New Bedford Light.

    Yet another chapter in the Vineyard Wind saga:

    New Bedford Light: Vineyard Wind on Wednesday sued its turbine supplier, GE Renewables, in civil court in Boston, alleging GE is breaching its contract and planning to abandon the project by April 28 — during the critical final stage of coming fully online.

    According to the complaint, GE filed a termination notice with Vineyard Wind in late February for its contracts to supply wind turbines and service and maintain them, citing more than $300 million in claims unpaid by Vineyard Wind.

    If GE exits, Vineyard Wind says, the project “will likely fail, leaving the windfarm stranded.”

    The New Bedford Light provides more details on the litigation.

    Remember, BOEM waived the “pay as you build” decommissioning financial assurance requirement for Vineyard Wind and subsequently relaxed financial assurance requirements for all offshore wind projects.

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    Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe continues to oppose wind projects that impact their historic and cultural homeland

    Posted in energy policy, Offshore Wind, Regulation, tagged , , , , , on April 9, 2026| 1 Comment »

    Wamsutta Frank James speaking in Plymouth, at the statue of Massasoit.

    My wife has native American (Micmac) heritage. Her family has deep respect for the Wampanoag tribe, in part because of their friendship with Aquinnah Wampanoag elder and activist Frank B. (Wamsutta) James.

    Frank rescued my father-in-law after a car crash on Cape Cod and was a close friend for the rest of his life. Frank and my father-in-law, who headed the Art Dept. at Barnstable H.S., had common interests in art and history. Frank was also a talented musician, and was my wife’s music teacher at Eastham Elementary School on the Outer Cape.

    Frank fought for the rights of Native Americans long before it was fashionable. In 1970, the speech be wrote to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower was never delivered, because it was deemed to be inflammatory. In his draft remarks, Frank succinctly summarized the tribe’s recent history:

    “Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts…. Our spirit refuses to die.”

    This spirit is evident in their opposition to wind projects that impact their historic and cultural homeland.

    If Frank was alive today, he would no doubt be tirelessly supporting the preservation efforts of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe. Most recently, the tribe joined the Narragansett Tribe, Green Oceans, commercial fishermen, and others in a suit challenging federal approvals for the Sunrise Wind project. Green Ocean’s press release is attached.

    GO+PressRelease-Sunrise-LawsuitDownload

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    Details of US agreement with TotalEnergies to end offshore wind projects

    Posted in energy policy, Offshore Energy - General, Offshore Wind, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 24, 2026| 1 Comment »

    Lease 0538
    lease 0545

    Per the Dept. of the Interior:

    • TotalEnergies commits to invest approximately $1 billion—the value of its renounced offshore wind leases—in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States.
    • Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind.
    • Specifically, TotalEnergies will invest $928MM, in the following projects in 2026:
      • The development of Train 1 to 4 of Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas;
      • The development of upstream conventional oil in Gulf of America and of shale gas production.
    • Following theseTotal investments, the U.S. will terminate the following leases and reimburse the company:
      • Lease No. OCS-A 0535 (now 0545).  The lease is located in Carolina Long Bay area. This lease was fully executed by TotalEnergies Renewables USA, LLC on June 1, 2022, after payment of $133,333,333.
      • Lease No. OCS-A 0538.  The lease is located in the New York Bight area. The lease was fully executed by Attentive Energy, LLC on May 1, 2022, after payment of $795,000,000.
    • Total pledges not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States.

    Comments:

    • This is a good deal for Total.
    • They grossly overpaid for these leases during an offshore wind bidding frenzy.
    • In particular, the bid of $795 million for the New York Bight lease seemed irrational even at the time of the sale (more so now).
    • Construction had not begun on either wind project.
    • The LNG project looks like a good investment, and there are good opportunities to buy into deepwater and onshore shale projects.

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