Heavyweights Avangrid Renewables — part of the Spanish company Iberdrola — Equinor, EDF, EDPR, Mainstream Renewable Power and Northland Power expressed interests.
Germany utility E.on has submitted under the name EC&R Development, and compatriot developer Wpd applied under the name Wpd Offshore Alpha.
Also responding to the call for interest were: Algonquin Power Fund, Castle Wind, Cierco Corporation, Mission Floating Wind, Northcoast Floating Wind, and Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA).
Mission and Northcoast are backed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
In October, the US Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) issued a call for companies to express interest in three sites off the coast — Diablo Canyon, Morro Bay and Humboldt.
RCEA is a co-owner of the proposed 150MW Humboldt project off Eureka in the far north of the state, along with Principle Power and EDPR.
Trident Winds and EnBW are also developing the 650MW-1GW Castle Wind offshore project, in Morro Bay off the central coast.
Algonquin Power, a Canadian utility, submitted Algonquin Power Fund's proposal and Cierco is a newcomer owned by a company based in Scotland and California.
After lease areas are identified, based on the responses, BOEM will conduct a competitive lease sale probably in 2020, a spokesman said.
Market analyst Wood Mackenzie forecast 1.1GW of wind capacity off California by 2028.
