The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will auction three areas off Louisiana and Texas to offshore wind developers today, the first such sale in the region already teeming with oil and gas pipeline and port infrastructure, reports Reuters.
The Gulf Coast auction would be a break from previous federal offshore wind lease sales, held mainly in the Northeast, where developers have spent billions of dollars on acreage for projects meant to link into lucrative power markets and access state-level subsidies for carbon-free electricity.
Players in the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry are instead eyeing the sale as a way to fuel a new green hydrogen supply chain for the region’s vast industrial corridor. Hydrogen is a low-emissions fuel made by electrolyzing water that can help decarbonize heavy-emitting industries and transportation. It is considered “green” if produced with renewable energy and “gray” if the process is fueled with carbon-emitting natural gas. Read the entire story.
