The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has suspended bidding in the 7GW New York Bight lease sale after a second day of bids failed to yield any winners on Thursday.
The auction will recommence on Friday after 12 of the original 14 players active in the 46 round race pledged a total of over $3bn to acquire seabed rights to six sites.
At the end of the day, two bidders are willing to match the $900m price tag for the rights to develop the 1.4GW OCS-A 0539 site, which is being tendered in the BOEM-run auction.
Other unnamed players have agreed to pay $720m, $570m and $630m 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 $390m and $140m.
Bidding resumed at 9am EST today after the first 21 rounds of the auction took place yesterday.
The last developer standing will win the lease rights, with each company only allowed to secure one project site.
BOEM’s seabed rights auction for 480,000 acres off New York and New Jersey is the first such 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.