Central Atlantic offshore wind fields to go up for lease - Coastal Review Online
Central Atlantic offshore wind fields to go up for lease | Coastal Review
The federal government this week released a proposed sale notice for mid-Atlantic lease areas off the coasts of Delaware and Virginia.
The Bureau of Ocean Management, or BOEM, plans to hold a lease sale for two previously identified wind energy areas, including one a little more than 40 miles off Virginia’s coast.
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This area includes 176,505 acres adjacent to the eastern edge of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and northeast of the Kitty Hawk Wind project off North Carolina’s northern coast.
According to the Southeastern Wind Coalition, three wind energy areas spanning more than 336,000 acres off Virginia’s shores have the potential to exceed that state’s 5.6 gigawatt offshore wind goal.
“Additional development opportunities in proximity to Virginia not only provide the Commonwealth with clean energy options, but support the development of an offshore wind supply chain and workforce in the Hampton Roads region,” according to a coalition release. “Every GW of new development is anticipated to yield 5,200 direct and indirect jobs in Virginia and more than $740 million in economic output. Additional Central Atlantic lease sales are necessary to help North Carolina and other southeastern states realize the full economic potential of offshore wind.”
BOEM-approved wind fields including the Kitty Hawk and Wilmington East wind energy areas off North Carolina’s coast have been leased to three companies for more than $320 million.
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Wind turbines to be built in those areas are expected to generate a combination of up to more than 4.5 GW of energy – enough to power an estimated 1.2 million homes, according to the coalition.
The nonprofit works in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Louisiana, focusing on offshore and land-based wind, wind imports and the wind industry’s supply chain.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.