‘These Waters Are Hot': U.S. Auction Opens Up Offshore Wind Rush

When the U.S. last auctioned big plots of ocean to companies that wanted to build offshore wind farms a few years ago, it raked in a then-record-setting haul of $405 million. That’s set to be obliterated tomorrow, when two dozen companies compete to bid on lease areas off the coasts of New York and New Jersey as the scramble to erect wind turbines all along the U.S. coast and decarbonize the nation’s electric grid heats up.

The auction’s winners will secure the right to develop six lease areas in the New York Bight, a shallow stretch of the Atlantic Ocean between ...