The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has finalised the environmental review of potential offshore wind lease activities in the US’ Central Atlantic area, concluding that there would be no significant impacts from lease issuance. The environmental assessment considered possible impacts from issuing leases for offshore wind development off the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia coasts, including site assessment and site characterization activities such as geophysical, geological, and archaeological surveys.
In December 2023, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) revealed plans for a proposed offshore wind lease sale involving two Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) in the Central Atlantic. Lease area A-2 consists of 101,443 acres off Delaware Bay, while lease area C-1 consists of 176,505 acres off the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
At the federal level, the United States targets 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 15 GW of floating wind capacity by 2035. At the end of 2023, the US only had 42 MW of offshore wind capacity. Over 10 GW of onshore and offshore wind power capacity is under construction and over 60 GW is under development (of which over 36 GW offshore).
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