Engie still sees strong US appetite for renewables

By Forrest Crellin

PARIS (Reuters) - French power group Engie still sees strong appetite in the U.S. for renewable energy projects and expects the country to remain an integral part of the company's portfolio, Executive Vice President Edouard Neviaski said on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a pause in spending for the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, climate and infrastructure legislation that was signed into law by his predecessor Joe Biden.

Engie won 4.3 gigawatts of power purchase agreement deals globally in 2024, up from 2.7 GW in 2023, with 1.5 GW signed in the U.S. spanning eight projects, a press release on Monday showed.

"There is a strong appetite in the U.S. for this kind of contract," Neviaski said. "There are still some questions on the development of some renewable projects, but there is still quite a lot of interest from customers."

"In the years to come we expect some other parts of the world to increase more than in the U.S., but we still think that the U.S. will be a decent proportion of PPAs."

Trump has said previously he does not want to further facilitate the development of wind infrastructure in the U.S. Engie has 8 GW of wind and solar farm capacity in North America, with several projects still under development.

Neviaski said it was still too early to tell what would happen in the wind segment, but said he expected to see more development of renewable projects such as solar with battery capacity to increase flexibility.

He said he sees battery development growing more rapidly in 2025 as material costs have fallen and renewables have been built more quickly than expected.

(Reporting by Forrest Crellin; Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Jan Harvey)