March 28:  The most recent update to this tracker adds the projects Attentive Energy One, Community Offshore Wind and Excelsior Wind. It also now reflects that construction has been completed on the 132-MW South Fork Wind project, though commissioning remains underway. The policy table has been updated to reflect that Oregon’s governor has signed legislation which mandates state agencies jointly develop an offshore wind map, and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has granted Empire Offshore Wind’s request to route Empire Wind 1 power cables through federal navigation projects.

Other recent developments in the offshore wind industry include:

• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans to auction four offshore wind energy areas totaling 410,060 acres offshore Louisiana and Texas, its second offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico;
• Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island held the first-ever tri-state offshore wind joint solicitation, receiving bids from Ørsted, Avangrid, SouthCoast Wind and Vineyard Offshore; 
• The U.S. Department of the Interior has given its approval to Ørsted and Eversource Energy’s 924-MW Sunrise Wind project, and;
• New York has awarded new contracts to Equinor’s 810-MW Empire Wind 1 project as well as Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind, following the state’s expedited bidding process, which focused on allowing existing projects to rebid their contracts.

An offshore wind boom is underway in the U.S. as the industry aims to meet the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 30 GW by 2030. Last year the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held its first-ever auction for offshore wind leases off the West Coast in addition to auctioning six new lease areas in the New York Bight, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held its first-ever auction for offshore wind leases off the West Coast. A record total of nine leases went into effect in 2022.

The federal government has also proposed lease sales in the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf of Mexico, where deeper waters will necessitate the use of floating wind platforms instead of fixed-bottom turbine foundations. And Ohio is working to establish an offshore wind farm in Lake Erie that would be the first U.S. freshwater farm in state-controlled waters.

As the industry expands, so do the number of state and federal policy measures aimed at managing offshore wind. These measures include proposals to direct some offshore wind revenue toward studies on the industry’s marine impacts, and ones that would require analysis of offshore wind’s impacts on transmission planning. Use the search field below to find individual states by their postal abbreviation, or type "US" to find activity at the federal level.

Methodology: Wind farms under construction are listed once their developers release specifics on their size and location. The policy table includes significant state and federal developments. It generally does not include project-specific developments like environmental assessments. To suggest updates or alterations, please email [email protected].