(Adds details on offshore wind auction, comment from Interior
secretary)
By Nichola Groom
Jan 12 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on
Wednesday said it would hold the U.S. government's biggest ever
offshore wind auction next month for areas in waters off the
coast of New York and New Jersey, part of a range of measures it
unveiled to speed growth of clean energy.
"We're at an inflection point for domestic offshore wind
energy development," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said on a
call with reporters. "We must seize this moment."
The announcement, which seeks to advance Biden's ambitious
climate change agenda, comes as sweeping legislation to support
those goals is stalled in Congress. Biden has pledged an
"all-of-government" approach to fight global warming and
decarbonize the U.S. electricity grid by 2035.
The White House is "continuing to pursue this agenda every
way we know how," a senior administration official told
reporters on a briefing call on Tuesday.
In a wide-ranging memo, the administration unveiled actions
by seven federal agencies designed to accelerate deployment of
wind and solar projects while creating well-paying jobs, a
cornerstone of Biden's presidential campaign pledge.
The centerpiece of the announcement is the Feb. 23 sale of
six commercial leases in the New York Bight, shallow waters
between New York's Long Island and New Jersey. The leases are
projected to one day host projects able to generate up to 7
gigawatts of electricity, enough to power 2 million homes, the
administration said.
It would be the first offshore wind auction under Biden, who
last year launched an aggressive push to install 30 gigawatts of
the technology by 2030 and approved the nation's first two
commercial-scale projects. The last government auction for wind
leases was held in 2018.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said 25 companies are
eligible to bid on the leases, including entities controlled by
Equinor, Avangrid, BP and EDF,
and each bidder may only win one lease.
The 488,201 acres that will be offered to offshore wind
developers was reduced by 22% from the initial sale proposal
outlined last summer in response to input from the commercial
fishing industry, U.S. Coast Guard and others, BOEM said.
Developers will be required to "make every reasonable
effort" to use union labor to build their projects and to
outline plans for supporting creation of a domestic supply chain
for the industry. Companies that succeed in sourcing major
components domestically may be eligible for lower lease
operating fees.
Onshore, the administration announced steps to slash the
time it takes to permit clean energy projects on public lands
through better coordination between five agencies and the
creation of renewable energy coordination offices at the
Department of Interior.
It also unveiled a major federal effort to build thousands
of miles of electric transmission lines to carry clean energy
from solar and wind facilities to U.S. communities. The Building
a Better Grid initiative will tap billions of dollars in funding
from the $1 trillion infrastructure law passed in November to
finance new lines and grid upgrades.
The administration said it would ensure that the benefits of
clean energy investment will reach rural communities through a
new $10 million grant program at the Agriculture Department to
support projects in poor areas.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Leslie Adler and David
Gregorio)
BP (BP.)