Nearly 400,000 acres of ocean between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard sold on Friday (Dec. 14) for the most money ever paid for wind-lease plots in the United States. The high prices are spurred by Massachusetts’ commitment to buy more renewable energy as it ratchets up its pledge to cut emissions statewide.
The leases sold to three companies for a combined $405.1 million, or more than $1,000 an acre, obliterating the previous record set when Norway’s national energy company Statoil bought a wind farm lease off the New York Coast for $535 an acre for a total buy of $42.5 million.
Nearly 400,000 acres of ocean between Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard sold on Friday (Dec. 14) for the most money ever paid for wind-lease plots in the United States. The high prices are spurred by Massachusetts’ commitment to buy more renewable energy as it ratchets up its pledge to cut emissions statewide.
The leases sold to three companies for a combined $405.1 million, or more than $1,000 an acre, obliterating the previous record set when Norway’s national energy company Statoil bought a wind farm lease off the New York Coast for $535 an acre for a total buy of $42.5 million.
This auction likely went so differently because Massachusetts doubled the amount of offshore wind power it can purchase to 3,200 megawatts in August, which assures demand for much of the power the new wind farms will produce. Massachusetts has set a goal of running on 35% renewable energy by 2030.
If all three plots are fully developed, they could support approximately 4,100 megawatts of commercial wind energy, or enough electricity to power nearly 1.5 million homes, according to the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
