The United States government netted a record $4.37 billion on Friday from the sale of six offshore wind leases off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, a major step in the Biden administration’s goal of ushering in a future powered by renewable energy.
According to the Interior Department, the lease sale was the nation’s highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in history. Friday’s lease sale offered six lease areas totaling over 488,000 acres in the New York Bight for potential wind energy development and drew competitive winning bids from six companies totaling approximately $4.37 billion.
When wind turbines are built and start working, the auctioned acres are expected to generate up to 7,000 megawatts, enough to power nearly 2 million homes.
The New York Times quotes the Interior Department as saying that between the project and others currently under review, it hopes to see some 2,000 turbines churning from Massachusetts to North Carolina by the end of this decade.
“This week’s offshore wind sale makes one thing clear: the enthusiasm for the clean energy economy is undeniable and it’s here to stay,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. She called the lease sales part of the administration’s “commitment to tackle the climate crisis and create thousands of good-paying, union jobs across the nation.”
The United States currently has two offshore wind facilities, off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia. Last year, the Biden administration approved the development of the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm located off the Massachusetts coast.
Additionally, according to CNBC News, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is set to review more than a dozen plans for commercial offshore wind facilities by 2025.
The National Ocean Industries Association, an offshore energy industry organization, called the auction a watershed moment for the U.S. offshore wind sector and said it reflected the industry’s continued growth.
“The record-shattering interest in the New York Bight lease sale is testament to how bright the American offshore wind outlook is and how confident developers are in the strength of the U.S. offshore wind industry as a whole,” NOIA President Erik Milito said in a statement.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an arm of the Interior Department that oversees offshore activity, designated the New York Bight a “priority offshore wind area” in March of 2021.
