Six separate companies have bid a combined $4.4 billion to develop thousands of acres of offshore wind farms near the Long Island and New Jersey coasts, the Biden administration said last week.
Federal officials at the U.S. Department of the Interior are in the process of selling off more than 488,000 acres in this stretch of shallow-water ocean, known as the New York Bight. The goal is for the area to reach an offshore wind capacity of 30 gigawatts by 2030.
“This week’s offshore wind sale makes one thing clear: The enthusiasm for the clean energy economy is undeniable and it’s here to stay,” reads a prepared Feb. 25 statement from U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
The six bidders are:
- OW Ocean Winds East: $765 million bid – 71,522 acres
- Attentive Energy LLC: $795 million bid – 84,332 acres
- Bight Wind Holdings LLC: $1.1 billion bid – 125,964 acres
- Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight LLC: $780 million bid – 79,351 acres
- Invenergy Wind Offshore LLC: $645 million bid – 83,976 acres
- Mid-Atlantic OFfshore Wind LLC: $285 million bid – 43,086 acres
Any leases between the bidders and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is overseeing the New York Bight’s leasing, first need to be approved by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Justice Department.
Those efforts come as in New Jersey, the Murphy administration pursues a goal of having 50% of the state’s energy come from clean power sources by 2030, and 100% by 2050. Part of that includes efforts to develop 7.5 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
“By leading the nation in offshore wind, we’re growing our economy and bringing good-paying jobs to the Garden State,” Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted on Friday, calling the news a “huge week for our offshore wind industry.”
The state is in the process of developing the 200-acre New Jersey Wind Port, from which wind turbine components would be manufactured and assembled to be shipped to the rest of the country. The proposed $250 million manufacturing facility is based along the Delaware River in Camden County. Murphy said the site would make New Jersey a “global leader in component” manufacturing.
“This auction will help propel us forward when it comes to renewable energy, which will help prevent unnecessary dirty fossil fuel plants and pipelines from being built,” reads a Feb. 24 statement from Anjuli Ramos-Busot, state director for the environmental group the New Jersey Sierra Club. “New Jersey is leading the offshore wind market.”
Other groups were less thrilled.
Last month, a lawsuit was filed by residents from several coastal towns seeking to block the existing plans, so as to allow more time for public input from Jersey Shore communities. The plaintiffs contend that the massive offshore wind proposals haven’t examined enough ways to avoid harming New Jersey’s commercial fishing and tourism industries, as well as the state’s fragile marine ecosystems.
And the environmental group Clean Ocean Action decried the plans in a statement last week as “too much, too fast.”
“A rational approach was ignored, and the fast tracking of offshore wind puts marine life and a clean ocean economy at risk,” the group said on Wednesday. “[T]his is a reckless privatization, and will not ensure protection of marine life … that call the ocean home.”
