The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will choose winners for eight lease areas off the shores of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. (Sarah Vogelsong | Virginia Mercury)
A federal bureau will kick off its auction Tuesday for offshore wind leases in the Gulf of Maine, which it estimates could power up 4.5 million homes in the region.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will choose winners for eight lease areas off the shores of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maine. When the auction opens Tuesday at 9 a.m., the minimum bid starts at $50 an acre, the equivalent of between $4.8 million and $6.2 million per lease area.
The auction is expected to last one to two business days, according to BOEM, after which provisional winners will be announced.
Winning a bid “does not authorize the construction and operations of an offshore wind facility,” BOEM said in a news release in September. Instead, the bidder has the opportunity to submit “project-specific plans,” which will be subject to “environmental, technical, and public reviews” before BOEM decides whether to approve it, the bureau said.
A bidder may pursue a maximum of two lease areas: two in what BOEM has designated the southern region or one in the northern area plus one in the southern area.
The gubernatorial candidates in New Hampshire have split on the proposal. Democrat Joyce Craig, a former Manchester mayor, has embraced the energy opportunity and said the state needs to take a “proactive role” in developing it. Republican Kelly Ayotte, a former U.S. senator, has said that though she’s open to wind generally, she doesn’t think what’s being proposed in the Gulf of Maine is right for the state. She said the return on investment wasn’t there and pointed to concerns from fishermen.