Lots of excitement in the wind energy business, with the news that the New York Bight auction for approximately 762 square miles generated $4.37 billion in bid activity. Bight Wind Holdings had the largest bid with its offer of $1.1 billion for 124,964 acres.
TotalEnergies, Paris, which won the auction for a separate piece of large ocean real estate for wind farms in the New York Bight region, said in a press release that the 488,000 acres auctioned off could accommodate a generation capacity of at least 3 GW, enough to provide power to about one million homes. The company said the wind farms it will build on its more than 132 square miles are approximately 47 nautical miles off the coast of New York and New Jersey. Its project is expected to come online by 2028.
While construction of these offshore wind farms is still several years off, they will eventually generate business for the electrical construction industry with the development of onshore staging facilities at ports, some manufacturing activities and classrooms to train workers for new jobs in the offshore wind industry. There will also be some business available at the shipyards the recently won bids for CTVs (crew transfer vessels) and other ships that will bring supplies out to the wind farms.
