By Sabela Ojea

BP Plc said Wednesday that its partnership with EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG has named its two offshore wind projects in the Irish Sea and launched a supplier portal.

The oil major said that once the projects, called Morgan and Mona, are complete they will have a combined potential generating capacity of three gigawatts, sufficient to power the equivalent of around 3.4 million U.K. households with clean electricity.

"These leases will play a critical role in helping deliver the U.K. government's aim of producing enough offshore wind to power every U.K. home, quadrupling the country's generating capacity to 40 gigawatts by 2030," said Richard Haydock, BP's project director.

The BP-EnBW partnership was named as the preferred bidder for the two 60-year leases in a U.K. offshore-wind leasing round in February, marking BP's entry to the British offshore-wind sector with a record bid.

BP executives have since defended the investment against accusations of overpaying for the leases, arguing the location is superior to other offshore wind projects.

Write to Sabela Ojea at sabela.ojea@wsj.com; @sabelaojeaguix

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-14-21 0709ET