The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will publish a Call for Information and Nominations (Call) for a second offshore wind energy sale in the Central Atlantic, seeking public input on potential development in areas off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina.
BOEM will public the Commercial Leasing for Wind Power Development on the Central Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) – Central Atlantic 2 – Call for Information and Nominations in the Federal Register on 22 August.
This will initiate a 60-day public comment period, with BOEM accepting nominations and comments until 21 October.
After the public comment period closes, BOEM will review and analyze commercial nominations and public comments submitted in response to the call.
BOEM said it will also consider information from Tribal consultations and the Central Atlantic Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force to further evaluate the suitability of the call area for offshore wind development and identify draft wind energy areas (WEAs).
The Central Atlantic 2 Call Area consists of 13,476,805 acres off New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina coasts.
“Today’s announcement kicks off the process for a second potential auction in the Central Atlantic and provides an important avenue to solicit information as we identify potential areas that may be suitable for future offshore wind energy leasing”, said Elizabeth Klein , BOEM Director.
Boem expects that the second offshore wind sale in the Central Atlantic will build upon the input and planning that led to the recent first Central Atlantic lease sale on 14 August.
Equinor and Virginia Electric and Power Co, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy, provisionally won lease areas in the auction, each securing one site.
Equinor was provisionally awarded the OCS-A 0557 lease area which the developer secured with a bid of USD 75 million, while Virginia Electric and Power Co won the OCS-A 0558 area with a bid of around USD 17.7 million.
The auction, which yielded almost USD 93 million, saw a total of six companies participating.