The Board of Public Utilities of New Jersey (United States) has issued the draft solicitation guidance document (SGD) for the state’s Third Offshore Wind Solicitation, which proposes to raise the minimum capacity target for this solicitation from 1,200 MW to 4,000 MW. This third bidding round would be issued in the first quarter of 2023 with bids submitted by mid-2023 and awards in the fourth quarter of the year; selected projects would have to be commissioned by 2030. Four additional 1,200 MW bidding rounds are expected by the third quarter of 2030 to reach New Jersey's offshore wind target of 11 GW by 2040.
Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has held the first auction of offshore wind leases on the Outer Continental Shelf off the central and northern coasts of California. The BOEM offered five areas off central and northern California with a combined potential to hold over 4.5 GW of offshore wind capacity. The California offshore wind sale attracted US$402m in bids, including a US$100m bid for one central California lease (Central Coast (Morro Bay) lease OCS-P0564 offering a potential capacity of 976 MW).
Overall, the United States aims at reaching 30 GW of overall offshore wind by 2030 (up from 42 MW at the end of 2021) and 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035.
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