(Bloomberg) -- TotalEnergies SE Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanne said the energy giant is in no rush to develop large, expensive floating wind farms, just as the French government unveiled plans to press ahead with the nascent technology to help reach its net zero ambitions.
An auction of offshore projects announced Friday, including floating farms, should allow the country to reach the goal of reaching 18 gigawatts of wind generation capacity at sea in 2035, the energy and sea ministries said in a statement.
But TotalEnergies will first focus on developing about 10 gigawatts of cheaper bottom-fixed projects for its German and US maritime leases before “taking care” of floating technology, Pouyanne said in a speech at the Evolen conference in Paris Thursday.
Floating wind projects “cost a lot, lot more and are much more complicated” than bottom-fixed projects, Pouyanne said. For research and development purposes, the oil major is still working on a couple of “pilot” projects involving a handful of floating turbines off the French and UK coasts.
In recent years, several major oil companies have become less ambitious in pursuing carbon emission reductions and investments in renewable energy. Pouyanne stressed the need to make green initiatives cost-effective.
“I’m allocating capital first on projects that advance the energy transition and fight climate change, but that correspond to our clients’ needs,” Pouyanne said.
France will seek to award about 5.2 gigawatts of floating and 4 gigawatts of bottom-fixed offshore wind projects in its 10th such tender, to be completed by the end of 2026, a government planning document showed Friday.
The government also unveiled priority maritime areas with a view to reach 45 gigawatts of offshore wind in 2050 as it banks on renewable and nuclear energies to become carbon neutral by the middle of the century. Developing some floating projects that are further away from the coasts is needed to preserve fishing and tourism, even if its potentially more expensive, according to the government presentation.
Jules Nyssen, president of Syndicat des Energies Renouvelables, France’s main renewable energy lobby, lauded the announcement, but said it could have provided more opportunities to take advantage of existing expertise in developing bottom-fixed wind farms.
Eolmed, a pilot project partly owned by TotalEnergies comprising three floating turbines, is facing “difficulties” because the supply chain is more expensive than forecast, Pouyanne said. The French government is unwilling to boost subsidies for the project, though a solution should be found, the executive said.
TotalEnergies also unveiled a pilot project for a single turbine in the UK North Sea last August to test a floater hull, Pouyanne said, while hinting that the group’s large floating wind project in South Korea isn’t making progress because of its costs.
The CEO also urged the energy industry to be careful with investment in green hydrogen, synthetic fuels and carbon capture projects as cash-strapped European governments could amend climate-friendly targets and policies if they end up proving too expensive or harmful to the region’s economy.
“It’s cheaper to make biofuels than synthetic fuels,” and clients “are coughing a bit when you offer them hydrogen that will be a lot more expensive than gas or gray hydrogen,” he said.
TotalEnergies and its partners are considering expanding carbon dioxide storage under the seabed in Norway, although “there’s not a lot of clients” because it costs more than buying C02 emission permits, the executive said.
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