The Biden administration is planning a new wind auction for areas off the coasts of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.
The Interior Department released a request for industry interest Wednesday in a potential sale, an early step in the leasing process that will help the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management narrow the range of areas available for leasing.
The move comes a week after BOEM netted $93 million for a sale off Delaware and Virginia Beach, Virginia. The sale frustrated Maryland leaders who had wanted the sale to include an area off their coast.
The flurry of lease sales is part of the administration’s effort to create a pipeline of offshore wind farms, part of a grand plan to install 110 gigawatts of offshore wind power by midcentury. Economic headwinds for offshore wind developers and the upcoming presidential election have increased pressure on the administration to entrench the nascent wind industry.
