Avangrid Renewables has been chosen by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) as the preliminary winner of auction for the construction of Kitty Hawk offshore wind farm, North Carolina.

A subsidiary of Spanish state-owned electric utility Iberdrola, Avangrid had successfully bid $9m for the 122,405 acres site, designated as OCS-A 0508 and located off the coast of Kitty Hawk.

Avangrid’s competitors in the offshore wind lease auction included Statoil Wind US, wpd offshore Alpha and Wind Future. A total of nine companied qualified for the bid according to BOEM.

It was the seventh competitive lease auction held for offshore wind development in the region.

Avangrid CEO James P. Torgerson said: “Between our leading position in the United States, including North Carolina, where we operate a wind farm near Elizabeth City, along with the expertise and experience of our international affiliate, Iberdrola Group, in developing offshore wind in Europe, we felt we were well positioned to secure this bid.

“We are confident in our ability to leverage those channels, along with our supply chain knowledge and our development and transmission expertise, in order to deliver a competitively priced product to our eventual customers.”

The site has a capability to produce 1.49GW of clean energy which can cover the electricity needs of more than 500,000 households. This figure was arrived at based on the estimated 3MW per km2 by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

According to BOEM, the offshore wind area stretches about 24 nautical miles from shore to 25.7 nautical miles in a general southeast direction.

BOEM’s previously held six competitive lease auctions for more than one million acres in federal waters had raised more than $58m in high bids.