The U.S. Department of the Interior on Nov. 21 approved the Empire Wind offshore wind project – the sixth approval of a commercial-scale offshore wind energy project under President Biden administration.

Empire Wind US LLC proposes to develop two offshore wind facilities, known as Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2. The lease area is located south of Long Island, N.Y., and east of Long Branch, N.J. Owned by Equinor and BP, the project would have up to 147 wind turbines with total capacity of 2.08 gigawatts. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, BOEM, estimates could power more than 700,000 homes each year. The projects would support over 830 jobs each year during the construction phase and about 300 jobs annually during the operations phase.

BOEM has held four offshore wind lease auctions, raising almost $5.5 billion in high bids, including a record-breaking sale offshore New York and New Jersey and the first-ever sales offshore the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts. BOEM has also advanced the process to explore additional opportunities for offshore wind energy development in the U.S., including in the Gulf of Maine and offshore Oregon and the U.S. Central Atlantic coast.

The Biden administration has set a goal to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, and an additional 15 GW of floating wind by 2035.