New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
US announces first offshore wind lease sale for the Pacific and awards $2.8bn for battery manufacturing
26/10/2022
News
The US Department of the Interior has announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold an offshore wind energy lease sale on 6 December 2022. It will be the first ever offshore wind lease on the US west coast and the first to support potential commercial scale floating offshore wind energy development.
This offshore wind lease is for areas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS): three lease areas off central and two off northern California of approximately 373,000 acres in total. Collectively, they have the potential to produce more than 4.5 GW of offshore wind energy, equivalent to powering some 1.5mn homes, and support thousands of jobs.
This sale could be crucial for the Biden-Harris administration’s deployment goal of 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.
BOEM has already held 10 competitive lease sales and issued 27 active commercial wind leases in the Atlantic Ocean from Massachusetts to North Carolina. In this lease sale, it will offer bidding credits to bidders who enter into community benefit agreements or invest in workforce training or supply chain development.
$2.8bn to supercharge US manufacturing of batteries
The Biden-Harris administration has also announced the first of a set of projects to expand the domestic manufacturing of batteries for EVs and the electrical grid and for both materials and components currently imported to the US from abroad.
Some 20 companies will receive a combined $2.8bn for building and expanding commercial-scale facilities in 12 different states to mine and process lithium, graphite and other important battery materials, manufacture components, and demonstrate new approaches, such as manufacturing components from recycled materials.
