On April 30, the Department of Interior announced its plan for the first offshore wind energy auction in the Gulf of Maine scheduled for October of this year. The proposed sale would encompass eight lease areas in the final Wind Energy Area (WEA) totaling nearly 1 million acres off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. According to the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM), the lease areas are large enough to support the region’s offshore wind energy goals of 13-18 GW of electricity.
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In addition, the Department of Interior also indicated that this would be the first of two lease auctions in the Gulf of Maine, the first in October, the second in 2028. The timing and scope of a second Gulf of Maine sale would be directly informed by the results of the 2024 sale.
Public comment on the proposed sale notice ends on July 1. Following that date, BOEM will issue a Final Sale Notice and plans to hold the auction in the fall or winter 2024.
Size
The average area of each proposed lease is approximately 120,000 acres. Several leases are subject to a proposed lease stipulation that would prohibit surface or subsurface items, such as floating foundations, mooring lines, anchor structures, or inter-array cables along lease borders. This proposed stipulation applies to leases in the southern region of the WEA where BOEM has created three corridors between leases for transit through proposed lease areas. BOEM created these corridors in response to feedback from members of the fishing community that requested offshore wind energy facilities be designed in a manner that provides for uninterrupted transit to and from fishing grounds.
Location
In its Proposed Sale Notice, BOEM has included lease stipulations and bidding credits that are proposed for the Gulf of Maine auction.
Issuance of a lease offers the exclusive right to the lessee to submit plans to BOEM to conduct surveys, submit a Site Assessment Plan and a Construction and Operations Plan. The lease is not an authorization for construction. Each lease contains three sections: 1) location and description of activities, 2) lease terms and financial schedule, and 3) specific terms, conditions, and stipulations.
BOEM has proposed several stipulations for Gulf of Maine leases. For the six southern lease areas, BOEM has proposed a requirement to create three 2.5 nm corridors where surface or subsurface developments are prohibited to facilitate existing and future vessel transit between leases. BOEM has proposed a “good neighbor” stipulation that developers with directly adjacent leases design a surface structure layout that contains two common lines of orientation across the adjacent leases. If this is not feasible, the developer must incorporate a 1 nm setback from the boundary of the adjacent lease within which surface structures are prohibited.
BOEM will also require developers to provide a communications plan to ensure stakeholders including fisheries, tribes, and agencies receive progress updates. Developers would be required to submit progress reports every six months describing outreach with affected ocean users and efforts to avoid, minimize, or mitigate conflicts. These reports would be publicly available on the BOEM website.
BOEM also requires developers to submit survey plans for review prior to activities and ensure that all projects activities comply with federal protected species requirements. Developers must also make a reasonable effort to enter a Project Labor Agreement for construction.
As proposed, a developer can win a maximum of two South Region leases, or one North Region and one South Region lease to ensure competitive bidding and procurement processes. BOEM proposes a minimum bid of $50 per acre and multiple-factor auction format to allow bids to be a combination of monetary and non-monetary factors. Under the multiple-factor format, developers could offer a cash bid of 75% plus 25% in bidding credits.
BOEM has proposed two bidding credits: 12.5% to invest in programs that advance U.S. floating offshore wind workforce training or supply chain development and 12.5% to establish or contribute to a Fisheries Compensatory Mitigation Fund.
Possible bidders
BOEM has identified companies that are qualified or pending qualification to participate in the Gulf of Maine auction. Additional companies have until July 1 to submit qualification materials to BOEM.
Pine Tree Offshore Wind, LLC
OW Gulf of Maine LLC
Maine Offshore Wind Development LLC
Corio USA Projectco LLC
On June 20, BOEM released the draft Environmental Assessment of the Gulf of Maine Wind Energy Area. The draft EA considers the potential environmental impacts associated with activities such as surveys and installation of meteorological buoys, but not installation of offshore turbines, which would be covered by a separate environmental review if a project proposal is submitted by a leaseholder. BOEM is accepting public comment until July 22 through regulations.gov, and is holding online public meetings on July 8 at 1pm and July 10 at 5pm.
If BOEM moves forward with Gulf of Maine leasing, the next step will be the release of the Final Sale Notice expected later this summer.
State Applies for Federal Funds to Build Wind Port
In March, Gov. Mills announced that Sears Island in Searsport had been selected as the site for a future wind turbine staging area. In May, the Department of Transportation (DOT) applied for $456 million in federal funds so that it can begin constructing the floating offshore wind port on Sears Island.
If approved, the federal grant would cover about two-thirds of the nearly $760 million that the state estimates it will need to build the port and a heavy-lift semi-submersible barge that's needed to launch the floating wind turbine foundations.
The remaining funds would come from other federal and state grants and from anticipated payments as areas are leased to wind developers in the coming years.
The DOT said there are currently no other sites being considered on the East Coast that could support the construction and deployment of floating wind turbines. If everything is approved, wind port construction could begin in 2027 and finish in 2029.
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