WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Biden administration on Friday said it was seeking a possible buyer for a wind lease in the shallow waters between Long Island and New Jersey as part of its ongoing efforts to address climate change in part through cleaner energy.
In a statement, the U.S. Department of the Interior said the proposed sale for off shore wind development on the Outer Continental shelf in the New York Bight has “the potential to unlock over 7 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, powering more than 2.6 million homes and supporting thousands of new jobs.”
The move is the administration’s latest push into cleaner energy technologies as it seeks to double offshore wind capacity by 2030 and decarbonize the power sector by 2035.
It has the first commercial scale offshore wind farm, the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project, a joint venture between Avangrid Inc, a unit of Spain’s Iberdrola off the coast of Massachusetts.
It is also exploring wind energy potential in the Gulf of Mexico and California, and is reviewing projects in another area of New Jersey as well as Rhode Island.
The area up for sale Friday includes eight lease sites that could be auctioned for commercial wind energy development and is open for 60 days of public comments before a final sale decision is made, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said, adding it was the first such proposed lease of the Biden administration.
“The development of renewable energy resources is an important piece of addressing” climate change, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in the statement, adding the “new proposed lease stipulations puts a priority on creating and sustaining good-paying union jobs as we build a clean energy economy.”
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; editing by David Evans)
