The Trump administration has agreed to pay German energy company RWE $1.22 billion (€1.06 billion) to relinquish its US offshore wind leases, marking the latest in a series of settlements aimed at ending planned coastal wind projects.
RWE US Offshore announced on August 6 that it had reached a settlement with the Department of the Interior resolving its legal claims.
In return, the company will surrender leases off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana. RWE said it had invested more than $1 billion (€868 million) in the projects but concluded there was “no path forward to permit these projects in the US for the foreseeable future”.
The three areas are a New York Bight lease held through the Bight Wind joint venture, the Canopy Offshore Wind site off Humboldt County, northern California, and the Lake Charles area, about 70km off the Louisiana coast.
The company described the resolution as serving the interests of its stakeholders and allowing it to redirect resources toward energy projects that can proceed with greater certainty.
Under the agreement, RWE will invest $900 million (€781 million) to take an indirect 16 per cent stake in a Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, with the proceeds funding construction of the terminal.
It has also signed a $300 million (€260 million) turbine reservation agreement linked to natural-gas peaking plants, and said it was developing a pipeline of 15 such projects across target US markets.
RWE Americas plans approximately €17 billion of US investment over the next six years, lifting its generation capacity from about 13 GW across 27 states to 22 GW by 2031, while the group continues offshore wind development abroad. It commissioned 2 GW of new US capacity in 2025.
The settlement is the fifth of its kind concluded by the Interior Department with wind developers, bringing total commitments to more than $3.9 billion (€3.39 billion). Earlier agreements covered TotalEnergies’ Attentive Energy and Carolina Long Bay projects, four leases held by Invenergy, and the Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind ventures developed by Ocean Winds.
The administration frames the policy as a rejection of intermittent and high-cost renewable generation.
Officials argue that offshore wind remains dependent on large subsidies, generates power intermittently, and has struggled to deliver reliable, affordable electricity without sustained public support.
Campaign groups opposed to offshore wind, among them Green Oceans, have also pointed to risks to marine life. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there are no known links between large whale deaths and offshore wind activity.
US President Donald Trump has long criticised wind farms. At the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21 he described the “Green New Scam” as “perhaps the greatest hoax in history”, adding that windmills were “all over the place” in Europe and “they are losers”.
Several planned US projects have already faced rising costs, supply-chain delays and cancelled contracts once subsidy assumptions weakened.
US interior secretary Doug Burgum said the settlement would strengthen energy security and support dependable, affordable power for American consumers. He said Americans deserved an energy system “built on common sense, not one dependent on costly subsidies”.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer criticised the payments as an example of prioritising foreign companies and fossil interests over renewable energy and state economic plans.
He wrote on X that the administration was spending billions to limit US energy supply and that the effect would be higher utility bills. Burgum replied that no taxpayer money would be spent and that the arrangement was a “dollar-for-dollar repurposing” of RWE’s own money.
Several states are challenging the deals in court. Seven states led by New York filed suit on June 2 over the TotalEnergies buyout, calling it a “sham settlement agreement” and arguing the Interior Department had exceeded its powers under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.
California announced its own action on June 23, with the state energy commission subpoenaing the terms of two earlier buyouts.
RWE’s New York lease alone had been acquired for $1.1 billion (€955 million) in a 2022 auction under the previous administration. The company now holds no remaining US offshore wind leases.
RWE Americas and its affiliates will continue to deploy capital across the US to meet rapidly growing energy demand, including LNG infrastructure and natural gas turbine reservations.
RWE is still committed to expanding its offshore operations in the rest of the world. With 18 offshore wind farms in operation, four under construction, and more projects in planning, RWE is one of the globe’s top offshore wind developers.
That pipeline includes 6.9 GW of capacity secured in Britain’s most recent offshore wind auction and the Nordseecluster A wind farm off the German coast, which fed its first electricity into the grid on July 22.
