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December 13, 2018

Massachusetts Offshore Wind Showdown Starts

The US Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) is holding an auction for commercial wind energy leasing offshore Massachusetts this Thursday, 13 December.

The auction is offering three offshore wind energy lease areas covering nearly 390,000 acres which if fully built out could support around 4.1GW of offshore wind capacity.

After 23 rounds of bidding, the three lease areas brought in USD 273 million in bids.


Nineteen companies had previously qualified to participate in the Atlantic Wind Lease Sale 4A. The companies are Avangrid Renewables, Camellia Wind Energy, CI III Blue Cloud Wind Energy II, Cobra Industrial Services, Deepwater Wind New England, East Wind, EC&R Development, EDF Renewables Development, EDPR Offshore North America, Enbridge Holdings (Green Energy), Innogy US Renewable Projects, Mayflower Wind Energy, Northeast Wind Energy, Northland Power America, PNE Wind USA, Equinor Wind US, Vineyard Wind, Wind Future, and wpd offshore Alpha.

The three leases offered in the auction are located within the two lease blocks for which Equinor (formerly Statoil) and PNE Wind had separately submitted unsolicited lease requests in late 2016 and early 2017.

This is the nation's 8th offshore wind auction.