Dec 7 (Reuters) - The first ever auction of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California was in its second day on Wednesday, with high bids topping half a billion dollars.
There is currently about 100 megawatts of floating wind capacity installed in the world, compared with 50 gigawatts (GW) for conventional offshore wind, Zaidi noted.
Previous federal offshore wind auctions have all been for leases in shallower waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
High bids on individual leases ranged between $95.3 million and $148.8 million, according to live auction results on the BOEM web site.
They include established offshore wind players like Avangrid Inc (AGR.N), Orsted (ORSTED.CO) and Equinor (EQNR.OL), which are all developing projects on the U.S. East Coast, as well as potential new entrants, including Swedish floating wind developer Hexicon (HEXI.ST) and Macquarie (MQG.AX) unit Corio.