US to offer leases for Pacific offshore wind energy platforms

An offshore wind energy lease sale will be held by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on December 6, the department said.

The leases will be to build floating offshore wind energy platforms in areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off central and northern California.

"The demand and momentum to build a clean energy future is undeniable," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.

"Today, we are taking another step toward unlocking the immense offshore wind energy potential off our nation's west coast to help combat the effects of climate change," Haaland said.

BOEM will offer five lease areas with the potential to produce over 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy, enough to power more than 1.5 million homes.

More than two dozen commercial wind leases have previously been issued for the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from Massachusetts to North Carolina.

The Biden administration has announced plans to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy by 2035.

It seeks to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind energy by more than 70 percent by 2035.

Floating platforms can be built in deep-water areas where turbines cannot be secured directly to the seafloor.

Two-thirds of America's offshore wind energy potential is in deep-water areas such as off the coast of California and Oregon that require floating platforms, according to US officials.