These seven projects have the potential to provide more than 8 gigawatts of clean, renewable energy to power roughly 3 million homes, and support the Administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.
BOEM has held four offshore wind lease auctions, which have brought in almost $5.5 billion in high bids, including a record-breaking sale offshore New York and New Jersey and the first-ever sales offshore the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts.
The bureau has also advanced the process to explore additional opportunities for offshore wind energy development in the U.S., including in the Gulf of Maine and offshore Oregon and the U.S. Central Atlantic coast. The Department has also taken steps to evolve its approach to offshore wind to drive towards union-built projects and a domestic-based supply chain.
The Sunrise Wind project will have a total capacity of 924-megawatt (MW) of clean, renewable energy that BOEM estimates could power more than 320,000 homes per year.
The project will support more than 800 direct jobs each year during the construction phase and about 300 jobs annually during the operations phase. The lease area is located approximately 16.4 nautical miles (nm) south of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., approximately 26.5 nm east of Montauk, N.Y., and approximately 14.5 nm from Block Island, R.I.
In response to comments from government partners, key stakeholders, and the public, and after considering project feasibility, BOEM selected a preferred alternative that includes fewer wind turbine generators than proposed by Sunrise Wind. This decision aims to accommodate geotechnical feasibility of the project, reduce impacts to benthic habitat and Atlantic cod, and meet the energy needs of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Invaluable feedback on the project’s potential environmental impacts was received through nation-to-nation consultations with Tribes, input from federal, state and local agencies, and from public meetings and comments. The Record of Decision includes measures aimed at avoiding, minimizing and mitigating the potential impacts that may result from the construction and operation of the project. These measures include a commitment by Sunrise Wind LLC to establishing fishery mitigation funds to compensate commercial and for-hire recreational fishers for any losses directly arising from the project.