Aug 29 Reuters The Biden administration will hold the first ever auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, expanding its bet on the nascent clean energy industry to a major U.S. hub for oil and gas production.

The sale is a major milestone in President Joe Biden39;s agenda to make offshore wind a cornerstone of his plan to fight fossilfuel driven climate change.

The Interior Department will auction off a lease area of 102,480 acres 41,472 hectares off the coast of Lake Charles, Louisiana, and two areas totaling nearly 200,000 acres offshore Galveston, Texas.

The online sale will begin at 9 a.m. EDT 1300 GMT. Interior39;s U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management BOEM, which oversees offshore energy development, will provide roundbyround updates on its web site.

According to a BOEM document, fifteen companies are qualified to bid at the sale. They include offshore wind development arms of European energy companies Equinor, Shell, RWE and TotalEnergies, all of which are already developing U.S. offshore wind leases in other regions. Equinor and Shell also have oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

Newer entrants to the U.S. offshore wind industry include divisions of South Korea39;s Hanwha, U.S. renewable energy developer Hecate Energy, and Houston private equity firm Quantum Capital.

The areas up for sale have the potential to generate about 3.7 gigawatts of power and could supply nearly 1.3 million homes with clean energy, Interior has…