Offshore wind farm sale brings in $93 million

The Biden administration raised $93 million from offshore wind developers in a sale off the coast of Delaware and Virginia on Wednesday, striking an optimistic tone for President Joe Biden’s offshore wind legacy despite economic headwinds for the industry.

Only two leases were available at the Central Atlantic auction. A wind lease off the coast of Delaware brought Norwegian energy giant Equinor $75 million, according to preliminary results from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

A second lease off the coast of Virginia Beach was purchased by Richmond-based utility Dominion Energy for nearly $18 million. Dominion was the sole bidder for the lease, which is adjacent to the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia offshore wind farm that Dominion is currently building.

The sale, likely one of the last auctions in Biden’s wind-friendly era, reaffirms the developer’s continued interest in investing in the U.S. despite a year of strong economic headwinds and bad press – a broken turbine blade at an offshore wind farm in Massachusetts damaged the fledgling industry’s reputation and a sale planned by the Biden administration in the Gulf of Mexico was canceled last month due to a lack of industry interest.