The US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico on August 29, the US administration announced today.
The first offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico will include three sites with the potential to accommodate 3.7 GW of offshore wind capacity. One area offshore Lake Charles, Louisiana, and two areas offshore Galveston, Texas will be auctioned. The Lake Charles area is 102,480 acres, Galveston I is also 102,480 and Galveston II is 96,786.
Proposed Sale Notice for offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico was announced in February this year. The lease sale is part of the leasing strategy announced by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in 2021. As part of this leasing plan, BOEM already held auctions in the New York Bight, in the Carolina Long Bay and most recently in northern and central California.
The Gulf of Mexico Final Sale Notice, which will be published in the Federal Register on July 21, includes 16 qualified companies that can participate in the bidding. Among them are Avangrid Renewables LLC, Equinor Wind US LLC, Hanwha Offshore North America LLC and Hanwha Q CELLS USA Corp, RWE Offshore US Gulf LLC, Shell New Energies US LLC and TotalEnergies Renewables USA LLC.
The Biden administration has moved to catalyse the offshore wind industry, including by setting a target of 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030.
Increased costs, however, have recently posed challenges to the industry. Rhode Island Energy this week turned down the only bid it received in response to its request for proposals (RfP), soliciting 600 MW to 1,000 MW of offshore wind, due to affordability concerns. In the UK today Vattenfall announced a decision to stop the development of the 1.4-GW Norfolk Boreas wind project due to a sharp rise in costs.
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