Several major oil companies are investing in renewable energy, but the scale and strategy vary enormously. European majors like TotalEnergies, Equinor, and Eni have built significant solar and wind portfolios measured in gigawatts. American giants like ExxonMobil and Chevron have largely avoided wind and solar, instead channeling their low-carbon budgets into carbon capture and hydrogen. The gap between the most and least committed companies is wide and growing.
TotalEnergies Leads Among the Supermajors
TotalEnergies, the French energy giant, has the largest renewable energy footprint of any major oil company. By the end of 2024, its gross installed renewable power generation capacity reached 26 GW, a figure that grew by 1.8 GW in just the final quarter of that year. Breaking down the net capacity, solar accounts for 10.3 GW, onshore wind for 3.6 GW, and offshore wind for 0.5 GW. The company also operates 6.5 GW of gas-fired power generation, reflecting its strategy of pairing renewables with flexible gas plants to manage intermittency.
TotalEnergies has positioned itself as an “integrated energy company” rather than a pure oil producer, and its renewable capacity numbers back that up. No other oil major comes close to 26 GW of installed renewable generation. The company has been particularly aggressive in solar, building and acquiring large-scale projects across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Equinor’s Bet on Offshore Wind
Norway’s Equinor has taken a narrower but ambitious approach, focusing heavily on offshore wind. The company plans to reach 10 to 12 GW of installed net offshore wind capacity by 2030, building on decades of experience operating in harsh ocean environments for oil and gas extraction.
Equinor’s portfolio includes some landmark projects. Hywind Scotland was the world’s first floating offshore wind farm. Dogger Bank, a partnership with SSE Renewables and Vårgrønn off the English coast, will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm when fully operational. Beyond the UK, Equinor is one of the largest offshore wind developers in the United States, with projects on both the east and west coasts. It also holds stakes in three Baltic Sea wind developments off the coast of Poland, a 385 MW wind farm off Germany, and is developing floating wind projects in South Korea and Australia.
Floating offshore wind is where Equinor sees its competitive edge. The technology allows turbines to be placed in deep waters where traditional fixed-bottom foundations aren’t feasible, opening up vast stretches of ocean. Equinor’s early investment here could pay off as the technology scales.
Eni Plenitude: Aggressive Growth Targets
Italy’s Eni operates its renewable energy business through a subsidiary called Plenitude, which combines retail energy sales with a growing generation portfolio. As of December 2025, Plenitude had 5.8 GW of installed renewable capacity. Its targets are steep: 10 GW by 2028, 15 GW by 2030, and 60 GW by 2050.
Those 2030 and 2050 targets would place Eni’s renewable arm in the same league as dedicated renewable energy companies. Whether the company actually delivers on them will depend on continued capital allocation. But the trajectory so far suggests Eni is serious. Plenitude operates solar and wind assets across Europe and is expanding into new markets.
Shell and BP: Scaling Back
Shell and BP deserve mention for what they represent: the limits of oil company commitment to renewables. Both companies made high-profile pledges to grow their renewable portfolios in the early 2020s. Both have since retreated. BP announced in 2023 that it would slow its planned shift away from oil and gas, and Shell similarly pulled back from some offshore wind investments and narrowed its renewable ambitions. These reversals came as oil prices remained strong and shareholders pushed for higher near-term returns.
Shell still operates some wind and solar assets and maintains a large electric vehicle charging network, but renewables are no longer positioned as a core growth engine. BP retains a meaningful renewables pipeline but has deprioritized it relative to its earlier rhetoric. Neither company has abandoned clean energy entirely, but their strategies now look more like hedging than transformation.
ExxonMobil and Chevron Avoid Wind and Solar
The two largest U.S. oil companies have taken a fundamentally different approach from their European peers. ExxonMobil and Chevron have not invested meaningfully in wind or solar power generation. Instead, they’ve directed their low-carbon spending toward technologies that complement their existing fossil fuel operations.
ExxonMobil’s strategy centers on carbon capture and storage, which involves trapping emissions from industrial facilities and injecting them underground. The company recently cut its planned low-carbon investment by roughly one third, dropping from about $30 billion through 2030 to around $20 billion. That reduced budget will focus on carbon capture, hydrogen, and emissions-reduction technologies tied to its oil, gas, and industrial assets. ExxonMobil has also moved into lithium extraction for electric vehicle batteries, but it has shown no interest in building solar or wind farms.
Chevron follows a similar playbook: investments in hydrogen, carbon capture, and renewable fuels like biodiesel, but minimal exposure to power generation from wind or solar. The logic for both companies is that their expertise lies in molecules (fuels and chemicals), not electrons (electricity generation), and they see more value in decarbonizing the products they already make than in competing with utilities and dedicated renewable developers.
How the Industry Stacks Up Overall
The oil and gas industry’s total spending on clean energy remains a small fraction of what it invests in extracting fossil fuels. Global solar investment alone reached about $380 billion in 2023, but the vast majority of that capital came from utilities, dedicated renewable companies, and governments, not oil majors. The IEA has noted that oil and gas industry investment in clean fuels like bioenergy, hydrogen, and carbon capture is “picking up” but “remains well short of where it needs to be in climate-driven scenarios.”
The clearest pattern is geographic. European oil companies, operating under stricter emissions regulations and stronger political pressure, have built real renewable energy businesses. TotalEnergies, Equinor, and Eni collectively control tens of gigawatts of wind and solar capacity. American oil companies have treated renewables as peripheral, preferring to invest in technologies that extend the life of their fossil fuel operations rather than replace them. That divide shows no signs of narrowing.
For context, a single gigawatt of solar capacity can power roughly 200,000 homes in a sunny climate. TotalEnergies’ 26 GW of renewable capacity is substantial by any measure, comparable to the total installed renewable base of some mid-sized countries. But even TotalEnergies still earns the vast majority of its revenue from oil and gas. The renewable investments are growing fast in percentage terms, yet they remain a fraction of these companies’ core business.