Martha's Vineyard, MA - In a record setting lease for offshore wind energy farms in the U.S., three tracts of Massachusetts ocean sold for $400 million. Accounting for 390,000 acres, the new wind power generators will be erected south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the Department of the Interior, handled the auction which is said to be able to provide roughly 4.1 gigawatts of power, or enough energy to accommodate 1.5 million homes.

This sale is record-breaking, trouncing a purchase in 2016 by Norwegian energy giant Statoil which acquired the rights to almost 80,000 acres new New York for $42.5 million. The Massachusetts deal is nearly twice the cost at about $1,025 per acre and almost five times more acreage.

What's even more impressive is the fact that the BOEM attempted to sell tracts in this same region of the ocean three years ago, resulting in a deal at $1.50 per acre and two parcels which failed to garner any interest at all.

Walter Cruickshank, BOEM’s acting director, said, "The result of today's sale made me very optimistic about the future of the offshore wind industry in this country."

The rights purchased are as such:

Vineyard Wind Acquired Lease #0522 (132,370 acres) for just over $135 million

Equinor Wind Acquired Lease #0520 (128,811 acres) for $135 million

Mayflower Wind Energy Acquired lease #0521 (127,388 acres) for $135 million