The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has finalized a lease with Avangrid Renewables for a 122,405-acre wind area offshore North Carolina.
In March, Avangrid placed a winning bid of $9,066,650 for the Kitty Hawk Wind Energy Area after 17 rounds of BOEM’s competitive lease sale. The North Carolina lease area, designated OCS-A 0508, begins about 24 nautical miles from shore and extends 25.7 nautical miles in a general southeast direction.
Speaking on the finalization of the lease, Laura Beane, CEO and president of Avangrid Renewables, explains in a statement that this step “begins the formal process of studying these 122,000 acres in more detail” and establishes “long-term local and regional partnerships.”
“Even at this very early stage, we have a lot of work to do as we seek to better comprehend a number of variables that will inform our understanding of the wind farm development,” she says. “That process will take time, is highly technical and will involve many stakeholders, but we are confident in our ability to leverage our experience in order to deliver a competitively priced product to our eventual customers.”
BOEM says it signed the lease on Oct. 10, and it goes into effect on Nov. 1.
Beane adds, “We’ll bring to bear the substantial experience of our majority shareholder, Iberdrola Group, who develops builds, and operates offshore wind in Europe. Now we get to work undertaking an enormous task in bringing this project to fruition – but confident in its completion.”
