The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has suspended bidding in the 7GW New York Bight lease sale after the process failed to find any winners on Wednesday.
The auction will recommence on Thursday after 13 of the original 14 players active in the round pledged a total of over $1.5bn to acquire seabed rights to six sites.
At the end of day one, five developers are willing to pay $410m for the rights for the 1.4GW OCS-A 0539, the highest bidding so far following round 21.
Unnamed players have agreed to pay $295m, $285m and $265m for the 964MW OCS-A 0538, 924MW OCS-A 0541 and 868MW OCS-A 0537, respectively, according to the latest data from BOEM.
Bidding remains ongoing for the two other sites up for grabs where prices are at around $180m and $100m.
One of the 14 developers originally active today has dropped out of the running. However, 13 undisclosed players are still in contention for seabed acreage in the 7GW leasing round.
The last developer standing will win the lease rights, with each company only allowed to secure one project site.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) opened the seabed rights auction for 480,000 acres off New York and New Jersey in what is the first sale under the Biden-Harris Administration.
BOEM is putting forward values for each of the six sites, which pre-qualified developers will have to match to stay in the running.
Contenders are being drawn from a pre-approved list of 25 developers, selected by BOEM following an application process last August.
Among those eligible to take part are Iberdrola’s US subsidiary Avangrid Renewables, RWE Renewables, Equinor, BP, SSE Renewables, Orsted and EDF Renewables.
Once an area is leased, the developer must still receive permits from the federal government to survey, construct, and operate in a lease area, and must secure a financial off-take. These processes can take over five years to complete.
The lease auction is the first since 2018.