EDP wins auction to develop wind farm off the Californian coast

Ocean Winds, held by EDP Renováveis and French energy company Engie, has won an auction to undertake a wind farm energy project off the Central Coast of California for US$150 million.

The lease area awarded, OCS-P 0564, is one of five sites off the coast of California that was the subject of an auction held by BOEM. This auction is particularly notable as it is the first floating offshore wind lease sale in the country, and the first offshore wind lease sale of any kind, on the West Coast in the Morro Bay Area.
Ocean Winds (OW) has more than 10 years of experience in floating offshore wind, most notably through the development and operation of Windfloat Atlantic, the world’s first fully commercially operational floating offshore wind farm. OW has a substantial portfolio of floating projects in Europe and South Korea and is ideally positioned to bring this technology to the Golden State.
Golden State Wind’s winning bid for lease area OCS-P 0564 was $150.3 million, with OW and CPP Investments each maintaining a 50% investment in the project. When fully built out and operational, the lease area could accommodate approximately 2 GW of offshore wind energy, generating enough energy to power the equivalent of 900,000 homes. This will bring the US and California closer to meeting their clean energy goals of 15 GW of floating offshore wind generation by 2035 in the US and 5 GW by 2030 in California – building a new domestic industry, creating jobs for Californians, and boosting the local economy.
As part of Golden State Wind’s winning bid, OW and CPP Investments commit to investing $30 million in workforce development and supply chain initiatives and to work closely with key local stakeholders to maximise the benefits to California from the emerging offshore wind industry.
Michael Brown, the CEO of Ocean Winds North America, noted: “OW is a pioneer of floating offshore wind technology — with nearly 3.7 GW of floating wind projects in development or operations in Portugal, France, South Korea, and the UK – and we are ready to bring our expertise to the US as well. OW currently has about 4 GW of projects already under active development in the Northeastern US and this is the perfect opportunity to further expand our portfolio and contribute to the Federal Government’s ambitious floating offshore wind targets. We are pleased to partner with CPP Investments on this project and believe this will be the start of a strong relationship that may extend to future projects in other geographies.”
Born out of a strategic alliance between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, Ocean Winds develops, finances, builds and operates offshore wind farms all over the world. Ocean Winds has been increasing its gross capacity generating clean energy for millions of homes and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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