The US government expects to publish a final sale notice in January 2017 for a 1.5GW commercial wind lease area off North Carolina.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) anticipates an auction will follow in March for the 122,405-acre Kitty Hawk zone, located some 24 nautical miles from shore. The bidding will start at $244,800.
Using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s estimate of 3MW per square kilometre, the lease area could have a potential capacity of 1486MW, said BOEM.
Prospective bidders already qualified – including Apex Clean Energy, Dominion Power, EDF, Fishermen’s Energy and Green Sail Energy – have been asked to affirm their continued interest in participating in the auction by 17 October.
Other bidders have also been invited to come forward and must submit qualification documents by the same deadline.
If it turns out that only one developer remains interested in the site, BOEM will forego an auction and start one-on-one lease negotiations.
BOEM has already auctioned off several sites on the outer continental shelf along the Atlantic seaboard.
Deepwater Wind, Dong and OffshoreMW hold leases off Massachusetts, Dong also has rights to a New Jersey lease area, US Wind has sites off Maryland and New Jersey, and Dominion claimed the Virginia offshore wind lease.
Auction planning is also in the works for the New York and South Carolina offshore wind energy areas.
Image: Deepwater Wind
