Ocean property in the Gulf of Mexico is up for sale — this time for wind, rather than the oil and gas for which these waters are known.
(Bloomberg) — Ocean property in the Gulf of Mexico is up for sale — this time for wind, rather than the oil and gas for which these waters are known.
The Biden administration is leasing three areas totaling more than 300,000 acres off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana in an auction next month, a first-ever wind sale in the region. The plots have a combined installable capacity of 3.7 gigawatts, enough to power more than 1 million homes, the administration says.
The sale — a promise from last year — is a sign that the government is pushing to spur momentum in offshore wind development, at a time when projects along the East Coast face obstacles like rising costs that have caused utilities to balk and prompted developers to try renegotiating contracts.
As an oil hub, the Gulf of Mexico has infrastructure and workforces in place with the skills to transfer to offshore wind. “The remarkable synergy between offshore oil and gas and offshore wind is evident,” Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, said in an emailed statement.
The government auctioned five lease areas off the coast of California at the end of last year for a total of $757 million. The goal is to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
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