The US announces the Gulf of Maine’s first offshore wind lease sale

The US Department of the Interior (DOI) will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale in the Gulf of Maine for up to 13 GW of clean energy capacity.

The offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Maine will be held on October 29, 2024, for eight areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, as per the Final Lease Areas in green on the map below:

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) notes that a lease provides the right to submit project-specific plans. Submitted plans are subject to environmental, technical, and public reviews prior to a decision on whether the project proposals should be approved.  

If fully developed, these eight areas have a potential capacity of approximately 13 gigawatts (GW) of clean offshore wind energy that could power more than 4.5 million homes.

The area included in the Final Sale Notice (FSN) is approximately 120,000 acres less than the nearly 1 million acres announced by BOEM in April in its Proposed Sale Notice. BOEM says it “prioritized the avoidance of offshore fishing grounds, sensitive habitats, and existing and future vessel transit routes while still retaining sufficient acreage to support the region’s offshore wind energy goals.”

The DOI has approved more than 15 GW of offshore wind since the start of the Biden-Harris administration – half the capacity needed to achieve President Biden’s goal of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

Liz Burdock, CEO of the offshore wind nonprofit Oceantic Network, said in an emailed statement, “Oceantic Network fully supports BOEM’s advancement of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine. Today, they’ve established eight Wind Energy Areas capable of generating up to 13 GW – nearly half of the nation’s 30 GW goal and the majority of its 15 GW floating offshore wind goal. This represents a monumental step forward for floating offshore wind technology not only in the US, but globally.”

Read more: Maine awarded the US’s first floating offshore wind research lease

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