US government unveils plans for Gulf of Mexico offshore wind lease sale
By:
Tom Russell
23/02/2023
DOI
The US Department of the
Interior, through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), proposed
the first-ever offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Proposed Sale Notice (PSN) covers a 102,480 acre area offshore Lake
Charles, Louisiana, and two areas offshore Galveston, Texas, one comprising
102,480 acres and the other comprising 96,786 acres. BOEM is seeking public
comments on which, if any, of the two lease areas offshore Galveston should
be offered in the Final Sale Notice. It claims these areas have the potential
to power almost 1.3 million homes with clean energy.
BOEM is also seeking feedback on several lease stipulations that would
reaffirm its commitment to create jobs and engage with ocean users and
other stakeholders. Some of these potential stipulations include bidding
credits to bidders that commit to supporting workforce training programs
for the offshore wind industry, developing a domestic supply chain for
the offshore wind industry, or a combination of both.
The proposed stipulations also include establishing and contributing to
a fisheries compensatory mitigation fund or contributing to an existing
fund to mitigate potential negative impacts to commercial and for-hire
recreational fisheries caused by offshore wind development in the Gulf
of Mexico.
Furthermore, BOEM is proposing lessees provide a regular progress report
summarising engagement with Tribes and ocean users potentially affected
by proposed offshore wind activities.
The PSN will publish in the Federal Register later this month and initiates
a 60-day public comment period. If the Department decides to proceed with
the sale, BOEM will publish a Final Sale Notice at least 30 days ahead
of the sale, which would announce the time and date of the lease sale and
the companies qualified to participate in it.
The proposed sale is part of the leasing path announced by Secretary
Haaland in 2021 to meet the Biden-Harris administration’s goal to deploy
30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and follows the Department’s
approval of the nation's first two commercial scale offshore wind projects.
To date, BOEM has held 11 competitive lease sales and issued 27 active
commercial wind leases in the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to North
Carolina. At the end of 2022, BOEM conducted its first auction for floating
wind leases in the US federal waters. The much anticipated auction in California
saw seven companies bidding, with five lease sites allocated for
between $130 million and $173.8 million each. The California auction included
two areas in Humboldt (northern California) and three in Morro Bay (central
California), and BOEM estimates their capacities to total 4.5 GW, although
the new leaseholders are anticipating almost double this.
