Lease Areas off Texas and New Orleans’ Coasts Could Generate 3.7 GW of Power
The US government has announced plans to hold at the end of August its first-ever wind power auction in the Gulf of Mexico, a first step that could lead to a massive new source of work for breakbulk and project cargo.
The areas to be auctioned on 29 August by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, the federal body that oversees leasing and permitting for offshore projects, could generate up to 3.7 gigawatts, or GW, of renewable power.
The final sale notice, or FSN, includes a 102,480-acre area off the coast of Lake Charles in Louisiana and two areas totaling 102,480 and 96,768 acres off Galveston in Texas.
The BOEM has listed 15 companies who have qualified to participate in the lease auction: 547 Energy, Avangrid Renewables, Coastal Offshore Renewable Energy, energyRe Offshore Wind, Equinor Wind, Gulf Coast Offshore Wind, Gulf Wind Offshore, Hanwha Offshore North America, Hanwha Q Cells USA, Hecate Energy, Invenergy GOM Offshore Wind, RWE Offshore US Gulf, Shell New Energies, TotalEnergies Renewables USA and US Mainstream Renewable Power.
“The Gulf of Mexico is poised to play a key role in our nation’s transition to a clean energy future,” said Elizabeth Klein, director of the BOEM.
“Today’s announcement follows years of engagement with government agencies, states, ocean users, and stakeholders in the Gulf of Mexico region. We look forward to continued collaboration in the years to come,” she added.
Ambitious Green Targets
Plans to open up the Gulf of Mexico for offshore wind development advance the Biden-Harris administration’s target of 30 GW of offshore wind power by the end of the decade and a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035.
Although onshore wind is big business in the U.S., its offshore counterpart has been slower to take off, with uncertainty in previous years over leasing and permitting processes hampering development.
Buildout so far has been limited to waters off the U.S. East Coast, with a third commercial-scale project – the 1.1-GW Ocean Wind 1, located off New Jersey – getting a green light from the BOEM this year.
Construction has already begun on the 800-megawatt, or MW, Vineyard Wind project, offshore Massachusetts, and the 132-MW South Fork Wind project, offshore Rhode Island and New York.
President Biden is backing the nascent industry as part of his administration’s aggressive clean energy drive, with the 30-GW target expected to trigger more than US$12 billion per year in capital investments and create tens of thousands of jobs.
Elizabeth Klein will be one of the speakers on the “Breakbulk and Project Cargo Opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico” main stage panel session at Breakbulk Americas 2023. The session on Wednesday 27 September will be moderated by Scott Nance, senior research analyst at Wood Mackenzie.
Breakbulk Americas is on 26-28 September at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. Click here to reserve your tickets to the event and here for the full main stage program.
