The USA’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has released a new draft Wind Energy Area (WEA) in the Gulf of Maine which covers over 3.5 million acres.
It’s a move which has been welcomed by the Business Network for Offshore Wind, an organisation working to accelerate offshore wind and build a dedicated domestic supply chain.
”We welcome [this] advancement of draft offshore wind areas in the Gulf of Maine and the continued progress of this administration to hold seven auctions before 2025,” said John Begala, vice president of federal and state policy at the Business Network for Offshore Wind.
In total, the new area has the capacity to generate up to 40 GW of offshore wind energy. While the total area of installed projects will be lower, this draft WEA allows for significant progress on the US goals of 30 GW of wind energy by 2030 and 15 GW of floating wind energy by 2035.
With waters deeper than those used for previously approved East Coast offshore wind projects, development in the Gulf of Maine will consist almost entirely of floating wind turbines, providing a significant boost to the US’s domestic floating offshore wind supply chain.
