The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management expects to issue a request for interest (RFI) by October to restart an engagement process for offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine that began in 2019.
An RFI is an optional initial step that BOEM will take as it develops wind lease areas in the Gulf of Maine for its planned lease sale in 2024, Zachary Jylkka, renewable energy program specialist at BOEM, said Thursday during the agency’s Gulf of Maine Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force meeting.
BOEM took comments from task force members during the meeting on the agency’s RFI development framework in advance of issuing the final request.
The RFI will help BOEM gather information from stakeholders and gauge commercial interest as it prepares calls for information and nominations, which is the first step regulations require the agency to take in the lease development process. Once BOEM issues the RFI, it will hold a 45-day comment period, and Jylkka said the agency anticipates issuing the calls by April 2023.
BOEM has identified a draft RFI planning area that it will finalize based on stakeholder comments before issuing the RFI and refine further for the call.
“The planning area is roughly bounded on the west, north and east by BOEM’s jurisdiction for renewable energy activities on the Outer Continental Shelf, which is three nautical miles from shore to the exclusive economic zone,” Jylkka said. The southern boundary is based on physiographic and oceanographic features, he said
BOEM’s Gulf of Maine planning area, as seen here, will be consolidated over the next two years into final offshore wind lease areas for auction. | BOEM
In identifying a final RFI area of interest, BOEM will remove spaces from the planning area that are incompatible with OSW development. Those exclusions include the location Maine identified in its unsolicited lease area application to BOEM in October 2021 for the state’s planned floating offshore wind research array.
That application is for a 15-square-mile lease area for 12 floating turbines with a potential nameplate capacity of 144 MW.
As part of the review process for the research application, BOEM must issue a request for competitive interest (RFCI) to determine if any entity, beyond the state of Maine, wants to develop a commercial project in the proposed lease area. BOEM expects to issue the RFCI early this summer, followed by a 30-day comment period, Jylkka said.
If BOEM determines that there is competitive interest, the research lease application will move to a competitive planning and leasing process that could overlap with BOEM’s broader lease area development. And if no one expresses a competitive interest, BOEM will negotiate a research lease agreement with the state of Maine, Jylkka said.
BOEM’s plan for achieving a lease auction by October 2024 includes designating wind energy areas by October 2023 and issuing a proposed lease sale notice by the end of next year and a final sale notice by June 2024.
The Gulf of Maine task force, which is comprised of about 80 federal officials and elected officers of state, local and tribal governments from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, will continue to meet at “important milestones” in the lease development process, Jylkka said.
BOEM expects to share upcoming engagement opportunities, including draft call area information, this summer.