wind.letters
- Feb 4, 2022
- 2 min read

BOEM Announced Lease Auction Date for New York Bight for February 23, 2022

Updated: Feb 23, 2022

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced in January the next offshore wind farm lease online auction date for February 23, 2022, 9 A.M. (preceded by a mock auction on 2/18/22) with an auction schedule available in real time. In order to participate in the auction, bidders have to submit a Bidder Financial Form by January 26, 2022 and a Bid Deposit of $5,000 by February 9, 2022 according to the Final Sale Notice (FSN) by BOEM.

To evaluate and avoid conflict with ocean users, regional tribal nations, underserved communities and other stakeholder and agencies, BOEM had performed another round of stakeholder input which ran from summer until end of year 2021. This resulted in another 12 percent reductions in ocean acreage since the start of the review process. Including all the stakeholders input, 72 percent of original ocean wind area have been shaven off, now making 488,201 acres available for offshore wind farms (see table below). The Final Environmental Assessment documents for the New York Bight became available in December 2021. BOEM also published a list of 25 bidders that qualify under guideline 30 CFR 585.106 and 107 for the upcoming auction. This guideline limits eligibility to domestic bidders only, and will also limit the number of leases that any bidder can win to one.

The final Wind Energy Areas offered for auction in the New York Bight.

Source: BOEM

Documents (previous)	(current)	Acreage (previous)	(current)	Minimum required bid
OCS-A 0537	OCS-A 0537	84,688 acres	71,522 acres	$7,152,200
OCS-A 0538	OCS-A 0538	84,332 acres	84,332 acres	$8,433,200
OCS-A 0539	OCS-A 0539	80,062 acres	125,964 acres	$12,596,400
OCS-A 0540	Part of OCS-A-0540 was added to OCS-A-0539	76,148 acres
OCS-A 0541	OCS-A 0541	84,688 acres	79,351 acres	$7,935,100
OCS-A 0542	OCS-A 0542	87,890 acres	83,976 acres	$8,397,600
OCS-A 0543	eliminated	85,755 acres
OCS-A 0544	OCS-A 0544	43,056 acres	43,056 acres	$4,305,600

In response to the new Port Access Route Study which came out in January 2022 “to accommodate vessel traffic … from the Delaware Bay area to east of Montauk,” BOEM added additional conditions to lease area OCR-A 0544. This ocean field shares a border with OCS-A 0512 which is currently developed by Equinor Wind US and BP as the Empire Wind Energy Project with an expected commercial operation date in 2026. The lessee for OCR-A 0544 will have to find a compromise with Equinor (OCR-A 0512) to design “a surface structure layout that contains two common lines of orientation” between the two projects, or “incorporate a 2 nmi setback from the boundary of the neighboring lease” where no construction of any surface structure is allowed. Bidders are also made aware that the final shipping routes are still subject to change.

After the winners of the auctions are announced, BOEM expects the first ocean surveys to start in April 2022, still on time with the original schedule.

Maps of six Wind Energy Areas up for auction in the Hudson North, Central Bight and Hudson South area (below: final designs - previous and current map):

OCS-A 0537