By GREGORY ZELLER //
Get your bids ready – the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has scheduled a Feb. 23 “wind auction” to divvy up 480,000 watery acres off the Long Island coast ripe for offshore wind-power development.
Joined virtually by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the auction on Wednesday, trumpeting a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to fight climate change and create good-paying union jobs” in the New York Bight, a roughly triangular Atlantic coast indentation extending from New Jersey’s Cape May Inlet to Montauk Point.
Officially, the BOEM triggered the auction by issuing a final sale notice for the New York Bight buildout, but that’s just the paperwork. In essence, the first Biden era offshore-wind lease sale – which is projected to eventually produce nearly 7 gigawatts of renewable energy, enough to power 2 million homes – marks “an inflection point for domestic offshore wind-energy development,” according to Haaland.
“We must seize this moment,” the secretary added. “And we must do it together.”
Bight stuff: The New York Bight, including planned projects and the six zones up for grabs in the Feb. 23 auction.
Alas, not everyone is unified behind the auction or the development of the East Coast’s offshore-wind industry. Save LBI, a private coalition worried about spoiled views from popular New Jersey vacation destination Long Beach Island, has lawyered up; so have several influential Hamptons property owners.
But the BOEM and its partners in state government are all-in. In addition to development areas already on the books, the Feb. 23 auction will accept bids from offshore wind developers on six distinct lease areas – the most ever offered in a single offshore wind auction – and help the Biden administration toward its ambitious goal of having 30 gigawatts of offshore wind-power flowing by 2030.
It will also boost New York and New Jersey’s respective climate missions, including New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act plan to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind-power by 2035.
Kathy Hochul: Call for collaboration.
“Here in New York, we are already living with the effects of climate change through extreme weather that pose a direct threat to our way of life,” Hochul said Wednesday. “We must chart an ambitious path toward a cleaner energy economy.
“Today’s milestone further highlights New York’s commitment to reaching its offshore wind goals,” the governor added.
Doing so will “require collaboration at all levels,” Hochul noted, and to that end, the BOEM has labored with New York and New Jersey to produce “A Shared Vision on the Development of an Offshore Wind Supply Chain,” a comprehensive coordination plan for the feds, local governments and private industry.
With some reports projecting $109 billion in potential revenues over the next decade for local businesses along the offshore wind-energy supply chain, that roadmap will prove invaluable, according to rainmakers like Long Island Federation of Labor President John Durso – who applauded “opportunities for a new generation of workers” – and Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment.
“We cannot afford to delay our nation’s battle against the climate crises,” Esposito said in a statement. “We are delighted that the administration is prioritizing the development of offshore wind.
“Our future depends on it.”
