Approved the new leasing program for offshore wind in the USA
Ten gigawatts have already been approved and a great desire to make up for lost time with an extensive development program. Offshore wind in the USA is back to being the protagonist of energy policy by obtaining from the Biden-Harris administration a new roadmap and ad hoc rules. On 24 April, in fact, the Department of the Interior announced a plan to organize up to a dozen auctions for development rights of wind farms at sea. Four races will be held later this year and will cover the waters of the Central Atlantic, the Gulf of Maine, the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Oregon. The others will expire from 2025 to 2028. The goal, the Department explains in a press release, is to provide interested parties with advance notice of the areas that will be considered for future rental sales, facilitating early investment planning.
“The Biden-Harris administration, led by our Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, built an offshore wind industry from scratch after years of delay by the previous administration,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Looking to the future, this new leasing program will support the types of renewable energy projects needed to reduce consumer costs, combat climate change, create jobs to support families and ensure that economic opportunities are accessible to all communities”.
read slo EU invests in cross-border offshore wind farm in Italy and Croatia
The program of auctions for offshore wind in the USA was accompanied by a new Regulation for the development of marine renewables in the outer continental shelf. The measure should increase certainty and reduce the costs associated with the implementation of offshore wind projects by modernising the regulatory complex, streamlining excessively complex processes and eliminating unnecessary ones, clarifying ambiguous regulatory provisions and improving compliance requirements.
“This Final Regulation incorporates the lessons learned since we first published the offshore renewable energy regulations almost 15 years ago,” said BOEM director Elizabeth Klein. “It will reduce unnecessary costs and burdens for industry, while ensuring that the development of offshore renewable energy takes place in a safe and environmentally friendly way”.