Trump effect: RWE stops all offshore wind activity in United States

Germany's RWE has stopped work on its US projects for now in light of recent popular moves against the industry by the Trump administration, its CEO said in a text published ahead of the firm's annual meeting.

The comments by Markus Krebber are a heavy blow to the nascent subsidy-driven US offshore wind market, which was a key pillar of former US President Joe Biden's energy policy but which his successor Donald Trump has vowed to stop.

RWE holds three offshore wind leases in US waters off the coasts of New York, Louisiana and California.

Krebber's remarks come a week after Norwegian peer Equinor said it would halt offshore construction of its Empire Wind I project off the coast of New York because it received a stop-work order from US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The agency said information suggested it had been approved without a proper environmental analysis.

"In the US...we have stopped our offshore activities for the time being," Krebber said, according to the text for the annual general meeting, which is scheduled for April 30.

"We remain cautious given the political developments," he added.

Trump ordered a suspension of offshore wind leasing on his first day in office in January, calling wind power ugly and expensive.

RWE's US projects include the three-gigawatt Community Offshore Wind, which is among several projects vying for a contract with New York state. The project is a joint venture with Britain's National Grid, which is 73 per cent-owned by the German group.

The project was expected to start generating electricity in the early 2030s and be capable of powering more than a million homes. RWE paid $1.1 billion for the lease area in 2022.

Spokespeople for Community Offshore Wind were not immediately available for comment.

New York state is banking on large amounts of offshore wind power to reach its climate and "clean energy" goals. State officials were not immediately available for comment.

About half of RWE's installed renewable capacity is based in the United States.

The company was the lone bidder in a 2023 auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Mexico, securing a lease off the coast of Louisiana for just $5.6 million.

RWE also has an offshore wind lease off the coast of Northern California. That project, called Canopy Offshore Wind, was not expected to be completed for about a decade.

RWE, Germany's biggest power producer, said last month that it had pared back its US offshore wind activities to a minimum, stopping short of saying they were on ice.

Community Offshore Wind has non-current assets with a carrying amount - calculated by deducting depreciation from the original cost - of 1.31 billion euros ($1.49 billion), according to RWE's annual report.

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt and Nichola Groom in San Marino, California, Editing by Miranda Murray, Ludwig Burger and Mark Potter)