RWE and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum confirmed on Aug. 6, 2026, that the Department of the Interior paid RWE roughly $1.2 billion to abandon offshore wind leases off New York, California, and Louisiana, after the German company had already invested more than $1 billion developing them. RWE says it's redirecting the money into natural gas projects, including a Louisiana gas terminal and new gas plants, and Burgum publicly welcomed the deal as a 'voluntary investment' in energy that doesn't rely on 'costly subsidies.'
This is the third such settlement in 2026: the administration paid France's TotalEnergies $928 million in March to cancel two offshore wind projects and reached a similar deal with two more developers in April, bringing the year's total payouts for canceled wind leases to roughly $4 billion, according to Reuters. Courts have repeatedly ruled the administration cannot simply cancel permitted wind leases outright, which appears to be why it's buying its way out instead.
The abandoned California project alone was projected to power roughly 600,000 homes; the government is now paying a premium to replace that capacity with gas peaker plants, widely regarded as some of the more expensive power generation options available.
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