Nineteen companies will have the opportunity to compete in an auction on Thursday for three lease areas to develop over 4GW of offshore wind off the coast of Massachusetts.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will host the auction for the 158,000 hectares with a one-per-customer rule for the leasing areas, meaning the auction could result in three different winners.
The auction will start on Thursday morning and consists of a series of rounds. During each round, companies can choose to pay the new price tag or drop out of consideration.
The auction will likely conclude by day’s end when BOEM will announce the results.
Developers, including Avangrid Renewables, Norwegian company Equinor and Orsted-acquired Deepwater Wind, have the opportunity to bid on the three different lease areas.
The auction will be the second time BOEM has attempted to auction off the area.
In 2015, the agency divided the area into two leases that both failed to receive any bids from 12 qualified companies.
In response to comments from the companies, BOEM split the area into three leases instead of two.
The three zones each contain about 53,000 hectares, and lie directly southeast of areas already leased to Vineyard Wind and Bay State Wind.
The other companies able to compete in the auction are Camellia Wind Energy, Blue Cloud Wind Energy, Cobra Industrial Services, East Wind, EC&R Developments, EDF Renewables, EDPR Offshore North America, Enbridge Holdings (Green Energy), Innogy US Renewable Projects, Mayflower Wind Energy, Northeast Wind Energy, Northland Power America, PNE Wind USA, Vineyard Wind, Wind Future and WPD Offshore Alpha.
The next BOEM offshore auction – for as much as 315,000 acres of the New York Bight – is scheduled for early 2020.