The Biden administration announced four offshore wind power projects in the Gulf of Mexico with plans to pursue another offshore wind lease sale in the region “due to continued industry interest.”
- Option J: 495,567 acres located approximately 47.2 miles off the coast of Texas, with the potential to support projects that could power 2.1 million homes.
- Option K: 119,635 acres located approximately 61.5 miles off the coast of Texas, with projects potentially powering 508,200 homes.
- Option L: 91,157 acres located approximately 52.9 miles off the coast of Texas, which could likely power 387,450 homes.
- Option N: 56,978 acres located approximately 82 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with projects capable of providing power to around 242,000 homes.
The four new WEAs come after the Biden administration conducted its first wind project lease in the Gulf of Mexico region in August. Out of the three tracts on offer at the time, only one attracted bids. And only two companies bid on the tract, with RSWE Offshore US Gulf LLC paying $5.6 million.
This lease is expected to “support up to 1.24 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity and power nearly 435,000 homes with clean, renewable energy,” according to the BOEM release.
Since the start of the Biden administration, the BOEM has engaged in several activities to push the president’s wind power agenda.
The agency approved the country’s first four commercial-scale offshore wind projects, initiated an environmental review of 10 offshore wind projects, and advanced the process to explore wind power generation opportunities in Oregon, Central Atlantic, and the Gulf of Maine.
Wind Power Targets
While the Biden administration is pushing ahead with its goal of 30 GW offshore wind power capacity by the end of this decade, many experts see this as an impossible target due to cost and supply issues.Wind power project developers like Equinor, Orsted, Avangrid, Shell, and BP have canceled or sought to renegotiate contracts for commercial-scale wind farms in the country due to high interest rates, elevated cost of materials, and delays in the supply chains. The projects have scheduled starting dates between 2025 and 2028.
“Thirty gigawatts is now unfortunately not something that the developers are really aspiring to,” Michael Brown, U.S. country manager for Ocean Winds, an offshore wind joint venture between France’s ENGIE and Portugal’s EDP Renovaveis, said in an interview with Reuters.
“We want to meet as high a gigawatt target as possible, but it’s not going to be possible to meet those 30 GW.”
Samantha Woodworth, North American wind analyst at Wood Mackenzie, expects offshore wind power capacity to hit 21GW by 2030, which is only 70 percent of the Biden administration’s target.
Delaying Oil And Gas Lease
The BOEM announcement comes as the Biden administration is facing criticism for delaying the sale of a major offshore oil and gas lease sale. Lease Sale 261, spanning almost 73 million acres across the Gulf of Mexico region, was initially set to take place in September.However, BOEM placed some last-minute restrictions on the lease sale and reduced the available acreage by six million acres. In August, the American Petroleum Institute (API), Chevron, and the state of Louisiana sued BOEM for making these changes.
In September, Judge James Cain of the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the Biden administration to hold Lease Sale 261 without any restrictions. After the administration appealed, a federal appeals court recently stayed the lower court ruling.
Amid the delays, Lease Sale 261 got postponed to November 8. A hearing on the case is set for Nov. 13, and it is unclear whether BOEM will delay the lease further.
The IRA includes a provision which mandates that the federal government should have held an offshore oil rights auction within the past year in order to issue offshore wind leases.
“Shrinking or further delaying Lease Sale 261 threatens both our energy security and climate goals and could make us more dependent on dirty foreign oil and gas.”
