The US Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held the nation’s fifth competitive lease sale for renewable energy in federal waters, which offered nearly 344,000 acres offshore New Jersey for potential wind energy development.
The provisional winners of the lease sale are RES America Developments which bid US$ 880,715 for lease area OCS-A 0498 (160,480 acres), and US Wind, which bid US$ 1,006,240 for OCS-A 0499 (183,353 acres). The New Jersey Wind Energy Area starts about 7 nautical miles offshore and extends roughly 21 nautical miles seaward. Each lease will have a preliminary term of one year, during which the lessee will submit a Site Assessment Plan to BOEM for approval. Each lease will have a preliminary term of one year, during which the lessee will submit a Site Assessment Plan to BOEM for approval. Once BOEM receives a COP from a lessee, BOEM will conduct an environmental review of that proposed project. If the COP is approved, the lessee will have an operations term of 25 years.
