Public feedback sought on possible mitigation of future offshore wind projects in California

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is inviting the public to comment on a regional environmental analysis of potential mitigation measures on future development activities for five offshore wind lease areas off California’s central and north coasts.

The Notice of Availability (NOA) for the California Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) was published in the Federal Register on Thursday, November 14, initiating a 90-day comment period.

BOEM estimates that full development of these leases, totaling over 373,268 acres (151,056 hectares), has the potential to produce over 4.6 GW of offshore wind energy, enough to power over 1.5 million homes.

"Public input on our analysis will guide mitigation of future offshore wind energy development across multiple leases offshore California," said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. "We believe that this comprehensive regional approach will foster efficiencies for future project-specific wind energy project environmental reviews, all while ensuring the protection of our ocean environment and marine life."

In December 2022, BOEM held an auction that brought in over US$757 million for the rights to five lease areas offshore California – the first US lease areas granted for future floating offshore wind development.

BOEM said this is only the second time it has conducted a regional analysis of offshore renewable energy development and operations over multiple lease areas. BOEM decided to take this additional step to complete a PEIS because of the relatively close proximity of the five lease areas and the timing of when BOEM expects to receive future project plans for review.

The Draft PEIS analyses programmatic avoidance, minimisation, mitigation, and monitoring measures that BOEM may require as conditions of its approval for any future proposed offshore wind projects in California.

This new regional approach is an evolution of BOEM’s process to help ensure timely decisions that advance offshore wind energy development while safeguarding the ocean environment and marine life and reducing conflicts with other ocean uses.

Additional environmental analyses specific to each proposed wind energy project will build off this programmatic review once BOEM receives individual proposed project plans from the existing leaseholders.