Duke Energy to Sell Back its North Carolina Offshore Wind Area Lease
Duke Energy is joining the growing list of companies selling back their offshore wind energy leases to the Trump administration. The company has agreed voluntarily to terminate an area on the North Carolina coast.
Under the terms of the agreement announced today by the Department of the Interior, Duke Energy will be partially reimbursed for its offshore wind lease, which was in a very early stage of development. The company has agreed to redeploy the funds from its Carolina Long Bay wind farm project to additional generating capacity that will serve customers in the Carolinas.
Duke had won the lease as one of two awarded as part of an Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf auction in May 2022, with the other going to TotalEnergies. The Department of the Interior reports the lease is valued at $129 million for the site, which is east of Wilmington, North Carolina. The company had said in 2022 that the area could support up to 1.6 gigawatts of potential offshore wind energy, and projected a timeline for operations between 2030 and 2032.
“Under the agreement, Duke Energy will reinvest nearly $129 million in additional generating capacity, which may include advancing new nuclear and natural gas generation, and grid enhancements to strengthen reliability, support continued growth in the Carolinas, and keep costs as low as possible,” said Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of Duke Energy Carolinas.
Unlike the deal with TotalEnergies for the other North Carolina lease and the deals for the leases in California and the northeast, Duke is not required to focus on fossil fuel energy and has to use the funds to benefit the Carolinas. California has been critical of the Trump administration's deals to buy back two of its offshore wind leases, as it notes the companies can redirect the investments to other parts of the country.
California has filed a lawsuit against one of the deals that the administration made to buy back an offshore lease and has begun challenging a second lease buyback deal. A coalition of New England states has also filed a suit challenging the administration’s buyback of TotalEnergies leases.
Today’s deal leaves North Carolina with just one proposed wind area, Kitty Hawk, which is split into two projects. The North site was acquired in 2024 by Dominion Energy from Avangrid and renamed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind South. It is located approximately 40 miles offshore from North Carolina’s Outer Banks but adjacent to Dominion Energy’s under-construction project off Virginia Beach. Avangrid retained the rights to the southern portion of the lease. Combined, the total lease area has the capacity for up to 2.6 GW.
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After losing battles in the courts, the Trump administration started this strategy of buying back the leases. In the middle of June, it announced a deal with Invenergy for four offshore wind leases located in the New York Bight, the Central Coast of California, and the Gulf of Maine, totaling $765 million. In April, a deal was struck with a division of BlackRock to buy back a lease off the New Jersey coast for $765 million and a California offshore wind lease from Ocean Winds for $120 million. The first deal was with TotalEnergies for $928 million for its Carolina Long Bays lease, as well as another off the coast of New Jersey.
The Trump administration has committed to returning $2.7 billion for the offshore wind leases. All the projects were in the earlier developmental stages.