Three vast areas of US waters have been earmarked for wind farm development, according to an announcement from the Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM).
In total, another 356,550 acres of ocean will become Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) in line with the US government’s target of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.
The three areas are:
1. A-2: 26 nm from Delaware Bay, New Jersey (101,767 acres)
2. B-1: 23.5 nm from Ocean City, Maryland (78,285 acres)
3. C-1: 35 nm from Chesapeake Bay, Virginia (176,506 acres)
The next step will be a Notice of Intent, which will be published by the BOEM, to prepare an environmental assessment of the potential impact of the wind farms, which do not always sail through the approval process in the US.
Investigations will also be carried out with the Department of Defense and NASA in case there are any conflicting activities in those areas and if all is clear, a lease sale will be announced.
Just two weeks ago a lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico was approved by the Department of the Interior, the first in those waters.
And just a couple of weeks before that, Ocean Wind 1 was approved, a wind farm 13 nautical miles southeast of Atlantic City, in New Jersey.
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