U.S. Auctions Virginia Offshore Wind Farm Lease

Published Sep 4, 2013 2:32 PM by The Maritime Executive

The U.S. federal government auctioned a lease to build a wind farm on nearly 112,800 acres offshore Virginia.

The U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) began auctioning the lease at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

This is the BOEM's second lease sale after auctioning an area offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts in July.

In July, BOEM said the Virginia area is 23.5 nautical miles (43.5 km) from the Virginia Beach coastline and has the potential to support more than 2,000 megawatts of wind generation - enough electricity to power about 700,000 homes.

BOEM said it will auction the Virginia offshore area as a single lease.

BOEM said in July the following companies are eligible to participate in the auction: - Apex Virginia Offshore Wind LLC - Dominion Resources Inc's Virginia Electric and Power Co - Energy Management Inc - Electricite de France SA's EDF Renewable Development - Fisherman's Energy LLC - Iberdrola SA's Iberdrola Renewables Inc - Sea Breeze Energy LLC - Orisol Energy U.S. Inc