First U.S. Gulf of Maine Wind Auction Yields $22 Million in Winning Bids

The U.S. Interior Department on Oct. 29 held the first commercial offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Maine. Overseen by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the auction resulted in two provisional winners – Avangrid Renewables and Invenergy NE Offshore Wind – with almost $22 million in winning bids. The leased areas have the potential to provide clean energy for over 2.3 million households.

Avangrid Renewables secured two lease areas – Lease OCS-564 which spans 98,565 acres for nearly $5 million, and Lease OCS-568 consisting of 124,897 acres for over $6 million. The two areas are situated around 29.5 nautical miles (nm) from Massachusetts.

Invenergy NE Offshore Wind secured Lease OCS-562 consisting of 97,854 acres and situated around 46.2 nm from Maine for almost $5 million. The company bought the second lease area –Lease OCS-567 consisting of 117,780 acres and located nearly 21.6 nm from Massachusetts for just under $6 million.

The auction also produced bidding credits worth over $5.4 million, where the companies will commit to investing in community benefits. In this case, the companies will invest $2.7 million in workforce training and building a domestic supply chain, with the remaining $2.7 million invested towards fisheries compensatory mitigation.

This is the first auction for floating offshore wind on the Atlantic Coast and also marks the sixth offshore wind lease sale offered under the Biden administration. Past offshore wind leases include the Gulf of Mexico offshore wind auction and another in Oregon last month. To date, the department has approved ten commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects totaling more than 15 gigawatts of capacity and the potential to power more than 5 million households.

Following the latest offshore wind auction, the companies can produce a project plan for the bureau to review. The bureau will then produce an Environmental Impact Statement to evaluate the environmental and community impact of the project proposal, before approving a proposed construction and operations plan.