The federal government has published the details of an offshore wind auction. Companies are bidding on who will get to deploy the first floating wind turbines off the coast of Southern Oregon.
Avangrid, which is owned by the Spanish electric utility Iberdrola, is the co-owner of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts.
Also in the bidding process is Ocean Winds North America, a developer of one of the first offshore wind projects off of the Central California coast. In 2022, five companies — including Ocean Winds — won leases to use areas off of Northern and Central California. BOEM got $757 million for that auction.
The other three companies qualified for the Oregon auction are BlueFloat Energy, Mainstream Renewable Power and South Coast Energy Waters I.
The companies eligible to bid in Oregon are:
- Avangrid Renewables: The company co-owns Vineyard Wind, an active offshore wind project off the coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts where a massive turbine blade broke apart in mid-July, sending fiberglass debris into surrounding ocean waters. The company said a manufacturing error caused the blade to detach.
- BlueFloat Energy: The company is developing offshore wind power projects in multiple locations worldwide, including off the coast of Scotland, Italy, Spain, Australia and Colombia. It’s also a key player in the upcoming floating wind demonstration project off the coast of Taiwan, which will involve the installation of up to 12 floating platforms.
- Ocean Winds: The Madrid-based company currently has more than a dozen offshore wind projects in 8 countries. In the U.S., it co-owns SouthCoast Wind Energy – formerly Mayflower Wind – an offshore wind energy project in development just south of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. It’s also developing a wind project off the coast of New Jersey and New York. In December 2022, Ocean Winds won one of the leases to build offshore wind turbines in the Morro Bay area off the central coast of California.
- Mainstream Renewable Power: The company is developing offshore wind projects in Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and Australia. It developed the world’s largest offshore wind farm in operation at Hornsea, off the coast of England that has since been sold to Orsted. In addition to offshore wind, Mainstream Renewable also develops onshore wind, solar, green hydrogen and other renewable projects.
- South Coast Energy: Little is known about this developer. In a recent comment submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, it called itself “a renewable energy investment and development company that has experience working in Oregon.” South Coast also said its affiliates “have already invested millions of dollars to advance interconnection and transmission on Bonneville Power Administration’s grid system on the Oregon coast to support onshoring energy generated by offshore wind.”
Just like the California auction, companies will be able to offset up to 25% of their total bid through commitments to develop workforce training programs or agreements with local communities affected by the development of offshore wind.
The companies will have to submit a plan to achieve these commitments as part of their entry into the auction. The workforce training plan says companies will have to help train personnel for the floating offshore industry. This workforce must be made available to the entire industry, not just the company paying for them.
Companies can also commit to sign community benefit agreements with stakeholders including tribes, local governments and nonprofits, to minimize the impacts of offshore wind development locally. That could include helping the fishing industry with the cost of changing out their gear to adapt to working around floating wind turbines.
The online auction is scheduled to start at 7 a.m. on Oct. 15, and BOEM expects the auction to take one to two days.
Once leased, the companies have five years for surveying and research before they must submit a construction and operations plan. After the wind turbines are online, the leases will last for 35 years, unless that timeline is changed under the operations plan.
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will auction the first-ever wind energy leases off the Oregon Coast on Oct. 15. The federal government has published the details of an offshore wind auction. Companies are bidding on who will get to deploy the first floating wind turbines off the coast of Southern Oregon.
The two areas for sale — near Coos Bay and Brookings off the Southern Oregon shoreline — could generate more than 3.1 gigawatts of peak renewable energy if fully developed. That is enough electricity to power about 1 million homes.
“The advancement of the first offshore wind sale in Oregon marks years of engagement with state partners, Tribes, ocean users and industry,” said Deb Haaland, Interior Department secretary.
Wind power is part of a clean energy transition that will help address climate change and create jobs across the nation, Haaland said.
The area off Coos Bay is 32 miles offshore and consists of 61,203 acres.
The section of ocean off Brookings is about 18 miles from land and includes 133,792 acres.
Wind farm plans still would be subject to environmental, technical and public reviews prior to authorization.
Credit will be given to bidders who enter into community benefit agreements or invest in workforce training or supply chain development.
The Interior Department announced the approval of its 10th commercial scale offshore wind project near Maryland on Sept. 5.
Altogether, those projects could provide 15 gigawatts of clean energy, or enough power for 5.25 million homes.
A wind energy auction from mid-August for two lease areas off the Central Atlantic coast attracted nearly $93 million in winning bids.
Projects in those areas could power 2.2 million homes.
