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Feb 24 (Reuters) - The Biden's administration's sale of offshore wind development rights off the coasts of New York and New Jersey soared above records and expectations in its second day on Thursday with $3 billion in bids and more to come.
The auction, which began on Wednesday, is the first offshore wind lease sale under President Joe Biden, who has made expansion of offshore wind a cornerstone of his plans to tackle climate change while building a new domestic jobs engine.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees energy development in federal waters, is offering six leases across 488,201 acres (197,568 hectares) between New York's Long Island and New Jersey, an area known as the New York Bight.
The sale is the largest U.S. offshore wind auction ever. The energy generated from the newly offered areas could one day power nearly 2 million homes, the administration has said.
Combined live bids following the 43rd round of bidding stood at more than $3 billion by late Thursday, according to BOEM's website. That total eclipsed the combined high bids from the last five years of government offshore oil and gas auctions in the Gulf of Mexico.
"It's safe to say - based on what we know today - the end results of this lease sale will blow our expectations out of the water," Heather Zichal, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, a clean energy trade group, said in an emailed statement.
There were 12 bidders participating in the auction on Thursday, which appeared likely to stretch into Friday.
Bidding on the wind lease with the most potential for energy development had soared to $820 million, with the remaining five ranging between $110 million and $665 million.
The previous U.S. offshore wind auction record, set in 2018, was $405 million, and the most ever paid for a single lease was $135.1 million.
The website did not identify the companies competing for the leases, but approved bidders included entities controlled by Equinor ASA, Avangrid Inc, BP Plc and Eletricite de France SA, among others, according to government documents published last month.
Under the rules of the auction, each company can only win one lease. (Reporting by Nichola Groom Editing by Tomasz Janowski, Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft)
