The Atlantic coast’s first floating offshore wind lease sale within the Gulf of Maine resulted in two provisional winners and $21.9 million in successful bids, with 4 lease areas awarded.
The primary Atlantic floating offshore wind lease sale
The Biden-Harris administration introduced that Avangrid Renewables and Invenergy NE Offshore Wind emerged because the winners after one spherical of bidding. Avangrid secured two leases for a complete of $11.17 million – these areas embody practically 223,500 acres and are positioned round 29.5 nautical miles off the coast of Massachusetts. They’ll probably ship round 3 gigawatts (GW) of unpolluted power to the New England area.
Invenergy additionally obtained two lease areas, totaling simply over 215,600 acres, with successful bids amounting to $10.78 million. One space is about 46 nautical miles from Maine, whereas the opposite is 21.6 nautical miles from Massachusetts. Collectively, these areas have the potential to provide renewable power to greater than 2.3 million houses.
Avangrid’s portfolio on the East Coast has now expanded considerably, with over 5 GW of offshore wind capability deliberate – sufficient to energy greater than 2 million households. The corporate is concerned in tasks reminiscent of Winery Wind 1, New England Wind 1 and a pair of, and Kitty Hawk Wind South. With these new leases, Avangrid now holds the biggest offshore wind improvement portfolio within the Northeast area.
As for getting these floating wind generators out within the Atlantic, Avangrid asserts that it’s positioned to leverage the worldwide experience of its guardian firm, Iberdrola, which is pioneering floating offshore wind in Europe.
The Gulf of Maine wind lease sale is a part of the Biden-Harris administration’s initiative to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind power capability by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035. Since taking workplace, the administration has accredited 10 industrial offshore wind tasks – ranging from zero – that collectively might energy greater than 5 million houses. It has additionally carried out six offshore wind lease auctions, together with the first-ever for the Pacific and Gulf Coasts.
Liz Burdock, CEO of Oceantic Community, acknowledged: “At the moment’s profitable public sale demonstrates that offshore wind will proceed to play a number one function within the Northeast’s power future. These lease areas will ship well-paying, native jobs, and drive important funding in manufacturing amenities, ports, and transmission improvement. Regardless of the overall uncertainty across the upcoming presidential election, this can be a vote of confidence for an American business that has already acquired practically $3 billion of latest provide chain funding within the first 9 months of 2024.”
Electrek’s Take
In the case of the larger offshore wind image, Electrek reported final month that the worldwide wind turbine order consumption reached new highs within the first half of 2024, with 91.2 GW of exercise, a 23% improve year-over-year, because of the Asia-Pacific area, in keeping with evaluation from Wooden Mackenzie.
International onshore wind order consumption exercise elevated within the first half of 2024, however the offshore sector struggled, with order consumption lowering 38% year-over-year by means of the primary half (-4.1 GW), as difficult undertaking economics have curbed the market.
Luke Lewandowski, vp, international renewables analysis at Wooden Mackenzie, famous that “the offshore market has nearly 30 GW of conditional orders globally, 21 GW of that are for tasks in Europe and the US, however difficult economics proceed to delay conversion into agency orders.”
So at present’s public sale announcement is historic – placing floating offshore wind within the Gulf of Maine was solely an idea 4 years in the past. Nevertheless, solely 4 of the eight areas attracted excessive bids, which isn’t shocking contemplating the present challenges dealing with US offshore wind and the tight election, with one candidate threatening to undermine the business.
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