Posted on September 23, 2024
The U.S. Interior Department announced it will host a lease sale for the eight areas in the Gulf of Maine that federal officials want to develop into commercial offshore wind farms.
The auction will be held on Oct. 29.
Six of the potential wind plots are located off outer Cape Cod. The remaining two sites are off the Maine coast. In total, the sites encompass about 850,000 acres, about 120,000 fewer acres than initially proposed earlier this year.
Federal officials said in a news release that the potential lease areas have been reduced in size in order to avoid offshore fishing grounds and sensitive marine habitat.
If leased and developed entirely, federal officials with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management say these areas have the potential to generate about 13 gigawatts of wind energy, enough to power roughly 4.5 million homes.
According to the final sale notice, a total of 14 entities have been legally, technically and financially qualified to bid during the upcoming auction.
The eight areas are separate from a small parcel off the southern coast, which the state of Maine has leased as a site to test floating wind turbines.
“The growing enthusiasm for the clean energy future is infectious,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a statement. “Today’s announcement — which builds on the execution of the nation’s first floating offshore wind energy research lease in Maine last month — is the result of years of thoughtful coordination between our team, the Gulf of Maine states, industry and the Tribes and ocean users who share our interest in the health and longevity of our ocean.”
