First offshore power, and a costly lease surrender

The nation’s largest offshore wind farm to date, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project - which clocks in at 2.6 GW - sent its first commercial power to the grid this week (it joins Rhode Island’s Revolution Wind, which sent its first electrons onto the New England grid earlier this month). In stranger wind news, Interior announced a ~$928 million settlement with TotalEnergies to surrender two Atlantic wind leases. Jake Bittle & Rebecca Egan McCarthy have a pragmatic take on the deal - the payment mostly reimburses lease fees TotalEnergies paid in 2022, and the “redirected” oil and gas investments (Rio Grande LNG in South Texas and conventional production in the Gulf of Mexico) were already committed. Neither offshore lease was under active development or even near to completing federal permitting, and the deal doesn’t preclude future re-auction. Encouragingly, permitting reform negotiations in the Senate have apparently continued undisturbed.