(Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s administration resumed the largest ever U.S. sale of offshore wind development rights on Thursday, with combined bids for six areas off the coasts of New York and New Jersey climbing above $1.5 billion.
The auction is the first offshore wind lease sale under Biden, who has made expansion of offshore wind a cornerstone of his plans to tackle global warming while building a new domestic jobs engine.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees energy development in federal waters, is offering six leases across 488,201 acres between New York’s Long Island and New Jersey, an area known as the New York Bight.
The energy generated from the newly offered areas could one day power nearly 2 million homes, the administration has said.
The sale re-opened with a 22nd round of bidding on Thursday morning. Combined live bids following the round stood at $1.59 billion, according to BOEM’s web site.
Bidding on the lease with the most potential for energy development had soared to $430 million, with the remaining five between $100 million and $295 million.
The previous U.S. offshore wind auction record, set in 2018, was $405 million, and the most ever paid for a single lease was $135.1 million.
BOEM said 14 companies were taking part in the auction. The website did not identify the companies competing for the leases, but approved bidders included entities controlled by Equinor ASA, Avangrid Inc, BP Plc and Eletricite de France SA among others, according to government documents published last month.
Under the rules of the auction, each company can only win one lease.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
