RWE Renewables said its joint venture Bight Wind RWE has secured area OCS-A 0539 with a winning bid of $1.1 billion during the New York Bight offshore lease auction. The awarded seabed has the potential to host about 3 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, enough to power 1.1 million U.S. homes. The project is expected to be in operation by the end of the decade.
The auction consisted of six leases, a record in the U.S. for the most leases available in a single auction. Under the auction, format bidders were limited to winning one lease area only. A winning bid provides the rights to develop the lease area and to participate in upcoming New York state offtake auctions, the first of which is expected later this year.
The next step for RWE to fully meet requirements is to engage in community outreach with local tribes, the fishing industry and other ocean users; engage with the domestic supply chain to create new local jobs and private investments; and also enter into project labour agreements to pay laborers at prevailing wage rates.
New York state has a target of bringing 9,000 MW of offshore wind online by 2035 and New Jersey has a target of delivering 7,500 MW of offshore wind by 2035.
RWE recently finished the installation of all turbines of the 857 MW offshore wind farm Triton Knoll off the English Coast. Two more projects, the 342 MW project Kaskasi, off the German island Heligoland, and the 1.4 GW project Sofia, one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world, are currently under construction.