West Coast Floats Offshore Wind’s Future

West Coast’s first offshore wind sale tops $750M

Sharon Udasin, December 7, 2022 (The Hill)

“…[The first auction for wind development off the country’s Pacific coast raked] in a total of $757.1 million after two days of fierce bidding…[The third major U.S. offshore lease sale this year] will enable five companies to develop about 4.6 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, or enough to power more than 1.5 million homes, according to the Department of the Interior…[President Biden] set a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030…

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…[This was the] first U.S. sale to support the development of commercial-scale floating offshore wind, which is a relatively new technology…Because West Coast waters deepen much quicker than those off the East Coast, using floating infrastructure is more practical than attaching foundations to the seafloor, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory…The Biden administration has set a goal of deploying 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035…The auction, conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, offered five lease areas covering 373,268 total acres off Northern and Central California…

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…[The highest bid, $173,800,000, came from California North Floating, LLC, for] off the coast of Eureka…[RWE Offshore Wind Holdings, LLC ,] bid $157,700,000 for the 63,338-acre OCS-P 0561, located in the same Northern California lease zone…The third highest sale was to Central California Offshore Wind, LLC, at $150,300,000, for] the Central California lease area off the coast of Morro Bay…[The lease sale included a 20 percent credit for bidders who promised to] support workforce training programs or the development of a domestic wind supply chain…” click here for more

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