Floating wind beckons for BP, US transition wobbles – and how to green home heat on Russia's doorstep

Not a fortnight after Recharge reported that BP was “actively pursuing” first floating wind power leases – as news coverage swirled around claims the oil supermajor was rethinking its overall strategy for wind power at sea, the SVP of the energy giant’s offshore wind business unit announced it was moving into the highly prospective South Korean market via a majority stake in a gigascale early-stage project pipeline being advanced by Norway’s Deep Wind Offshore (DWO).

In an exclusive follow-up interview on rechargenews.com, Matthias Bausenwein said the BP swoop for a 55% slice of 6GW of DWO developments, largely on deep water sites, “should help [make clear its] ambitions” in floating wind, and denied there had been a downscaling of corporate aspiration since he made the move from Orsted last year to lead the UK-based BP’s global push.

In the wake of Bausenwein’s boss, Anja-Isobel Doztenrather, last week telling Recharge that BP had taken a “pure portfolio decision” in sitting out the US’ first floating wind auction, the high-profile 4.6GW round California in December, he noted that plans were afoot to add 100 to its global offshore wind team, which currently stands at 200 and is slated to eventually grow to 800 – including the key role of head of floating wind at the developer.

In another exclusive, Recharge spoke with DNO chief Knut Vassbotn about the South Korean tie-up with BP and DWO’s home deepwater play off Norway, where he said the government was “taking input from the industry seriously” as it gears up to open its first 3GW offshore wind tender next month.

Much as the clean-energy revolution is building up a head of steam, last year saw a slow-down in wind and solar construction in America, with 25.1GW of renewables installed, down a marked 16% from 2021, in a perfect storm of permitting, policy, regulatory and supply chain issues, according the American Clean Power Association.

The offshore wind sector – being looked to by Biden’s administration for its economic development potential as well as the clean power production that will be delivered by first utility-scale projects heading for water – is facing pressing challenges well beyond the supply chain and grid bottlenecks usually cited as hurdles to sector progress: a number of whales have been beached in New York and New Jersey, and some opponents of industry are blaming on offshore project survey work.

But on the positive side, the US’ first commercial offshore wind project, the 800MW Vineyard Wind 1, reported it had doubled the number of jobs created and total economic output from forecasts five years ago – a result ironically helped by delay caused by anti-wind former president Donald Trump's administration in 2019. And turbine OEM Siemens Gamesa announced plans to build a first factory in the New York, backed by $500m in local investment.

And if money talks, Recharge encourages you to lend an ear to two big funding announcements this past week. One, from New York regulators, authorised $4.4bn for state electric utilities to develop local transmission infrastructure upgrades that will create 3.5GW of capacity for solar and onshore wind in the state – and offshore wind in future. And two, from Washington itself, where the Department of Treasury said it would begin accepting applications from clean energy-related supply chain projects for a $4bn funding round coming out of a repurposed tax credit revived as part of the nation’s IRA.

For some deep thinking on energy independence, may we suggest Recharge’s piece on how ‘closed loop’ geothermal technology from Canadian start-up Eavor could help heat homes on Russia's doorstep fossil fuel-free.