The Department of the Interior announced the results from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s wind energy auction on Aug. 15 for two lease areas off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. According to the press release, The sale resulted in two provisional winners and $92.65 million in winning bids.
Equinor Wind US provisionally won Lease OCS-A 0557 at $75,001,001, which consists of 101,443 acres and is approximately 26 nautical miles (nm) from Delaware Bay. Virginia Electric and Power Co provisionally won Lease OCS-A 0558 at $17,650,500, which consists of 176,505 acres and is approximately 35 nm from the entrance of Chesapeake Bay. Six companies participated in the auction.
The press release said, “The sale represents a significant milestone toward achieving the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.”
“At the start of the Administration, our nation had approved zero offshore wind energy projects. Today, we have nine - enough to power nearly 5 million homes. This is what developing a clean energy transition looks like,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.
The leases do not authorize the construction or operation of an offshore wind facility. Rather, a lease provides the right to submit a project plan for Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) review. BOEM will develop an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to analyze the specific impacts of any project proposals before making decisions on whether to approve a proposed construction and operations plan.
