Offshore staff
PARIS/BOSTON – Three companies have commented on their awards under last week’s auctions for wind farm lease areas offshore New York and New Jersey.
TotalEnergies was awarded maritime lease area OCS-A 0538 by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in the New York Bight auction, having bid $795 million.
The 132-sq mi (341-sq km) lease area is up to 47 nautical mi (87 km) from the coast and could accommodate a generation capacity of at least 3 GW, sufficient to power around 1 million homes. TotalEnergies expects the project to come online by 2028.
EnBW, which also submitted a bid, has agreed to refocus its activity on Europe and transfer its interest in this New York Bight concession and staff in its North America team to TotalEnergies.
In addition, TotalEnergies will acquire from EnBW the pre-development work undertaken for the upcoming auction off the coast of Central California (Castle Wind project).
“This is the largest renewable energy project TotalEnergies has ever undertaken and we now have a portfolio of over 10 GW of offshore wind projects, a technology in which we aim to be a world leader by leveraging our offshore expertise," said Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.
RWE Renewables, via the joint venture 'Bight Wind LLC', secured area OCS-A 0539 with a winning bid of $1.1 billion. The seabed area could potentially host 3 GW of capacity, enough to power 1.1 million homes, and the project should be in operation toward the end of the decade.
Ocean Winds East, LLC (OW East) was the successful bidder for a 71,522-acre (289.4-sq km) area (OCS- A 0537) off the coast of New York/New Jersey.
OW East is a partnership between Ocean Winds, an offshore wind energy joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, supported by New York-based fund manager Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
The lease area, 38 mi (61 mi) off the coast of New York and 53 mi (85 km) offshore New Jersey, could generate 868 MW of power for use in more than 300,000 homes, according to BOEM. OW East is paying $765 million for the lease.
The US government's goal is to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind in the US by 2030.
2/28/2022
