Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday proposed offshore wind energy auctions offshore Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine, identifying ten lease areas containing up to 18 GW in capacity.
- The auctions will be the first ones held in each location. The proposed Gulf of Maine sale features eight lease areas offshore Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, while the Oregon sale includes one lease each in the Coos Bay and Brookings Wind Energy Areas.
- New Jersey also announced Tuesday that it is opening its fourth offshore wind solicitation to bidders, and seeking between 1.2 GW and 4 GW of capacity.
Dive Insight:
The eight lease areas in the proposed Gulf of Maine sale have the potential to generate up to 15 GW. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is “seeking feedback on various aspects of the proposed lease areas, including size, orientation and location of the eight lease areas and which areas, if any, should be prioritized for inclusion or exclusion from this lease sale,” the Interior Department said.
The auctions announced Tuesday are part of the Interior Department’s plan to host up to 12 offshore wind lease sales through 2028, which Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced last week. In addition to the Gulf of Maine and the Pacific, sales are planned in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and waters offshore U.S. territories.
The U.S. offshore wind industry has suffered setbacks over the last year due to macroeconomic factors like higher interest rates and supply chain disruptions. Recently a decision from GE Vernova to pivot away from its planned 18-MW turbine model contributed to the cancellation of three projects offshore New York, and developer Ørsted cancelled two projects offshore New Jersey last October after they became financially unworkable.
Those projects were set to deliver a total of more than 2.2 GW of capacity to New Jersey, which has established a goal of deploying 11 GW of offshore wind by 2040. The fourth solicitation, which closes July 10, “aims to encourage competition, promote economic development, and combat climate impacts, all at the lowest reasonable cost and lowest risk to New Jersey ratepayers,” the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities said in a release.
Beyond the financial and other issues impacting the U.S. offshore wind sector, any wind facilities built offshore Oregon and in the Gulf of Main face an additional significant challenge.
The water in the Gulf of Maine and offshore the coast of Oregon is deeper than many East Coast offshore lease sites, and offshore wind farms sited in those waters will require floating offshore wind equipment.
Globally, floating offshore wind has been deployed at a relatively small scale. The largest floating offshore wind farm is currently Equinor’s 88-MW Hywind Tampen farm offshore Norway, which powered up last August. Hywind Tampen is a “test bed for further development of floating wind,” according to Equinor.
The proposed sale notice for the areas in the Gulf of Maine includes an option for bidders to receive bidding credits by committing funding to either floating wind workforce training programs, development of a domestic supply chain for the floating offshore wind industry, or both.
“So far, 2024 has been the biggest year yet for offshore wind,” the Sierra Club said in a Tuesday release in response to the Interior Department’s announcement. “Regionally, South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind have powered on, plus Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut held a successful tri-state auction in March.”
The proposed Gulf of Maine auction “comes at a critical time in New England’s energy transition,” the Sierra Club said, as the region’s last two coal plants announced retirement dates in March.
“New lease areas in Oregon will support a further buildout of the West Coast’s regional supply chain, adding strength to California projects,” Liz Burdock, CEO of the Oceantic Network, said in a Tuesday release. “And in the Gulf of Maine, this new 15 GW of potential will drive the creation of a floating offshore wind supply chain on the East Coast.”
