The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued a Record of Decision (ROD) for the New York Bight offshore wind area. The ROD specifies environmental measures expected to be applied to the development of projects in the six lease areas that BOEM awarded in 2022.
Set to be published in the Federal Register on 6 December, the ROD identifies 58 previously applied avoidance, minimisation, mitigation, and monitoring (AMMM) measures BOEM plans to use across the New York Bight lease areas.
To reduce potential environmental impacts, developers can consider these measures in the Construction and Operations Plans (COPs) they submit to BOEM for subsequent review under the National Environmental Policy Act. Project-specific environmental reviews may include revised, additional, or different AMMM measures if needed to further reduce potential impacts, BOEM explained in a press release on 2 December.
The decision comes shortly after BOEM concluded the environmental review and issued the final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). In October, when the agency announced the PEIS, it said that this was the first time BOEM had conducted a regional analysis of offshore renewable energy development activities across multiple lease areas.
The six New York Bight offshore wind lease areas are located in federal waters off New York and New Jersey and cover over 488,000 acres. BOEM estimates that full development of the lease areas could generate up to 7 GW of offshore wind energy, enough to power up to two million homes.
The auction for the New York Bight acreage was held in February 2022 and brought in over USD 4.3 billion in winning bids for the rights to develop offshore wind farms – a record amount for any US offshore renewable or conventional energy lease sale.
The winning bids were placed by Bight Wind Holdings (RWE Renewables and National Grid), Attentive Energy (TotalEnergies and Corio Generation), Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind Bight (Shell and EDF Renewables), Invenergy Wind Offshore, OW Ocean Winds, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).