Interior Awards Five Leases for Offshore Wind in Northern California

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
December 12, 2022

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), a division of the Department of the Interior (DOI), recently awarded five leases for offshore wind power development along the California coast.

The results of the BOEM lease sale represent the third major offshore wind lease sale this year and the first for the Pacific region, the DOI said. The sale drew competitive bids from five companies totaling $757.1 million, well exceeding the first lease sales that were held in the Atlantic, BOEM said.

The sale offered five lease areas covering 373,268 acres off central and northern California. The leased areas have the potential to produce over 4.6 gigawatts (GW) of wind energy, BOEM said.

The provisional lease winners are RWE Offshore Wind Holdings, California North Floating, Equinor Wind US, Central California Offshore Wind, and Invenergy California Offshore.

The lease sale included a 20 percent credit for bidders that committed to a monetary contribution to programs or initiatives supporting workforce training programs for the floating offshore wind industry, the development of a U.S. domestic supply chain for the floating offshore wind energy industry, or both. The DOI said the credit would result in over $117 million in investments.

The auction also included 5 percent credits for bidders that committed to entering community benefit agreements (CBA). One type of agreement is with communities, stakeholder groups, or Tribal entities whose use of the lease areas or use of the resources harvested from the lease areas is expected to be affected by offshore wind development. The second type of agreement is a general CBA with communities, Tribes, or stakeholders that are expected to be affected by the potential impacts on the marine, coastal or human environment from lease development.

Earlier this month, BOEM finalized two Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) in the Gulf of Mexico and said it planned to issue a proposed sale notice for the competition to lease the areas. The first WEA is approximately 27.6 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas, and totals 508,265 acres. The second WEA is approximately 64.4 miles off the coast of Lake Charles, La., and totals 174,275 acres.

In February, the DOI announced the results of the nation’s highest-grossing competitive offshore energy lease sale in its history. The lease areas including oil and gas lease sales and six leases totaling more than 488,000 acres in the New York Bight for potential wind energy development, which drew winning bids from six companies totaling about $4.37 billion.