US Offshore Wind Auction Breaks Sales Record, 390,000 Acres Sold for $405 Mn

Offshore Wind has made its mark on the U.S. and perhaps the world’s renewable drive, with the sale of nearly 400,000 acres of the ocean just south of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, for nearly half a billion dollars at an auction that was concluded last week.

The auctions conducted by the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) lasted over 32 rounds and two days to lease 390,000 acres of ocean land for commercial offshore wind projects for $405 million or just over $1000 per acre ($1038), the highest price ever recorded for wind lease plots in the United State. The sale broke the record set in 2016 when Norway’s Statoil corporation purchased a 79,350-acre lease off the coast of New York for $42.5 million, or about $535 an acre.

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If fully developed, the three lease areas could provide approximately 4.1 gigawatts of commercial wind power enough to power 1.5 million homes, according to BOEM in a statement which chalked up a majority of the success to the Donald Trump administration. Surprisingly, the three lease areas were first auctioned three years before they set a new sale record, however, at that time they garnered zero interest and remained unsold. In that sense, the auctions serve to drive home just how far and fast the industry has evolved in the past three years, with offshore wind energy especially becoming hugely more productive and cost competitive.

“The result of today’s sale made me very optimistic about the future of the offshore wind industry in this country,” Walter Cruickshank, BOEM’s acting director, said in a call with reporters. “This auction will further the Administration’s comprehensive effort to secure the nation’s energy future,” he added.