In late June, Duke Energy accepted a $129 million federal taxpayer buyout to end its renewable energy wind project in the Carolina Long Bay wind area off the coast of Brunswick County, North Carolina.
This is the fourth payout by the Trump administration to halt offshore wind development and cancel leases in a push to replace renewable energy projects with fossil fuel and nuclear power.
“Duke Energy and Donald Trump are worsening the energy affordability crisis that’s plaguing North Carolina families and small businesses throughout the state,” said North Carolina Sierra Club chapter director Chris Herndon.
“It’s a disgrace that Duke Energy would walk away from an affordable, reliable offshore wind project that our state was counting on to create family-sustaining wages for workers and fixed-price clean electricity to power our state’s economy.”
In a previous buyout, the Trump administration paid global energy company TotalEnergies to abandon its lease neighboring the Duke Energy lease in the area south of Bald Head Island.
Together, the projects in the Carolina Long Bay wind energy area were estimated to support 37,000 jobs and generate up to 3 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 657,000 homes, and provide more than $4 billion in net economic impacts.
“We need more electricity, not less,” said Pasha Feinberg with the National Resources Defense Council. “The Trump administration is wasting our money paying companies not to produce energy. It’s long past time for the Trump administration to end its war on new energy so that customers’ bills won’t keep rising and our nation can meet its growing electricity demands.”
Courts have recently overturned the Trump administration’s actions to quell offshore wind development elsewhere on the East Coast, including allowing work to resume at a Dominion Energy Hampton Roads, Virginia project.
Several state attorneys general are currently challenging TotalEnergies’ federal buyout, and advocates like Herndon are encouraging North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson to review the legality of the Duke Energy deal.
