More Offshore Wind Leases Up for Grabs in Massachusetts

Three commercial leases representing nearly 390,000 acres of the Massachusetts Wind Energy Area—part of the largest offshore wind planning area in the nation—will go up for auction on Dec 13, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced.

The three leases are in an area where two former leases were left unsold during the Atlantic Wind Lease Sale in 2015.

If fully developed, the leased acreage could support approximately 4.1 gigawatts of power, according to the Interior Dept.

In related news, the Baker-Polito Administration announced on Oct. 22, the signing of a lease agreement with Vineyard Wind to utilize the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal as the primary staging and deployment location for its offshore wind project 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. It is the first port in North America built to support the staging and deployment of offshore wind components.

Vineyard Wind was selected in May to provide 800 megawatts of energy by 2021. The developer is 50% owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables.

The state’s next wind energy procurement is expected in 2019.

Also on Oct. 19, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management published two commercial offshore wind leasing notices for a first-ever auction in California. This will allow winning lessees “to propose the construction of a wind energy project on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore California and develop one or more projects, if approved after environmental review,” BOEM said in a statement. Nominations are due by Jan. 28.

Johanna Knapschaefer, ENR’s New England Special Correspondent, has been writing about trends in design and construction of buildings, bridges, tunnels and other infrastructure for more than a decade. She also profiles award-winning industry leaders and delves into broader construction issues such as workforce training, worker safety and health, climate change remediation and emerging offshore wind and tidal energy developments. Over the past two decades, her articles have appeared in Architectural Record, BusinessWeek, the Boston Globe, American Banker, Modern Metals, BusinessNH Magazine, Pittsburgh Magazine and many other publications. Johanna is fluent in Japanese, and taught English and academic writing in the Science and Engineering Department of Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, while living in Japan for eight years.

When not writing, Johanna enjoys mountain climbing, singing and playing her Spanish guitar.

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