The Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm, an offshore wind demonstration facility off the coast of Aberdeenshire, in the North Sea, Scotland. ZANASZANAS VIA WIKIPEDIA

When big oil companies dismantle rigs and switch to building new turbines, it has the ring of something good. Our thanks to Yale E360 for this news brief:

North Sea Fossil Fuel Companies Plan to Invest More in Wind than Oil Drilling

Having won rights to develop wind farms off the coast of Scotland, Shell, Total, and BP are set to invest more in wind power than in oil and gas drilling in the North Sea in the years ahead, the latest evidence of oil majors changing tack on renewables to better navigate the energy transition.

“Even before the ScotWind round, TotalEnergies was set to spend more over the next few years on offshore wind than on oil and gas development in the U.K.,” Norman Valentine, a research director at Wood Mackenzie, told Bloomberg. “BP’s capital investment in U.K. offshore wind was also set to eclipse oil and gas by mid-decade even without its new ScotWind projects.” Additionally, Shell’s spending on two proposed wind projects in Scottish waters could exceed its oil and gas investment later this decade, according to Valentine.

Shell is dismantling its rigs in the North Sea’s Brent oil field, while BP has sold off its interest in the Forties oil field. Both oil deposits lie just off the coast of Scotland. Total, meanwhile, has opened an offshore wind hub at its oil and gas center in Aberdeen, Scotland, which will allow workers to move from oil and gas to wind as the company ramps up investment in renewables…

Read the whole story here.