TotalEnergies and Simply Blue Group form US floating offshore wind joint venture

Irish developer Simply Blue Group has formed a joint venture with oil major TotalEnergies to target floating offshore wind development in the US.

Through their TotalEnergies SBE US joint venture, they plan to combine TotalEnergies’ expertise in large-scale offshore projects with Simply Blue Group’s experience in floating offshore wind.

The two companies are already working together on developing floating offshore wind off the UK.

Simply Blue Group has a pipeline of more than 9GW of floating offshore wind farms – including projects it is yet to publicly announce – primarily in Ireland and the UK.

Meanwhile, TotalEnergies is developing more than 6GW of offshore wind capacity worldwide, of which more than 40% is due to use floating platforms.

Simply Blue CEO Sam Roch-Perks said: “The future and next frontier of US offshore wind is floating. Almost two- thirds of US offshore wind resources are found in deeper waters that require floating wind platforms.”

TotalEnergies aims to have 100GW of operational renewable energy capacity by 2030, which would  place it among the top five green-energy players globally. Stéphane Michel, president of gas, renewables and power at TotalEnergies said floating offshore wind can help it towards this goal.

However, the majority of its investments will still be in fossil fuels.

Most of the US’s offshore wind pipeline is set to use fixed-bottom foundations, but off some states – especially on the west coast – deeper waters would likely necessitate the use of floating platforms.