Update: Second day of California offshore wind energy lease auction, bids pass $732 million
The second day of the California offshore wind energy auction began at 7 a.m. Wednesday, with bids for the five lease areas starting near or above $100 million each, for a total of $532 million.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is conducting the auction.
In total, BOEM is auctioning off more than 370,000 acres of the Pacific Ocean, split into three lease areas off the Central Coast near San Simeon and Cambria and another two lease areas in Northern California west of Humboldt Bay.
The three Central Coast lease areas are collectively called the Morro Bay wind energy area and are about 80,000 acres each. The northern lease areas — all together titled the Humboldt wind energy area — encompass about 63,000 and 69,000 acres of the ocean each.
Each lease area sits in an area of the Pacific Ocean at least 20 miles off the shoreline, and should turbines be developed there, they will be floating because the depth to the floor cannot economically accommodate fixed-bottom structures, which are the more common version seen around the world. The Morro Bay and Humboldt wind energy areas will have a collective capacity to produce 4.5 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power about 1.6 million homes, according to BOEM.
There are 43 companies qualified to bid on the five lease areas. Each company can win only one lease area.
As of 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the lowest bid was $120.3 million for one of the Morro Bay wind energy area leases.
The other Morro Bay leases had bids at $130 million and $150.3 million.
The two Humboldt lease areas had bids at $157.7 million and $173.8 million.
Bidding is expected to last through the day. The Tribune will have the results as soon as they are available.
California auction less competitive than New York auction
Another offshore wind energy lease auction that took place in February for 488,200 acres of ocean space off the shores of New York was more competitive from the start than the California auction.
That area was split into six leases ranging from 43,000 acres to nearly 126,000 acres.
At the start of that auction, 14 of the 25 qualified companies placed bids for the lease areas. The most competitive area at the beginning of the New York auction had eight bids.
For comparison, the most bids places across all of the five California leases has been seven, according to BOEM. The day finished with six bidders.
The New York auction had 64 rounds of bidding, and finished with bids totaling between $645 million and $1.1 billion.
The lack of similar competition on the West Coast could be explained by several factors, including the lack of established port availability near the offshore wind energy areas and uncertainty about the California and floating turbine market — both of which are burgeoning.
This story was originally published December 7, 2022 at 9:16 AM.
