Opening a massive new front for offshore energy development around the Island this week, state and federal officials kicked off a federal leasing process that will see wind developers bid on blocks of the Atlantic south of the Vineyard and Nantucket.

In Tuesday’s rollout of the federal Request for Interest (RFI) in the area, state and federal officials said they hope to develop up to 4,000 megawatts of electricity in a 2,224 nautical square mile area that will reach within 13.8 miles of Vineyard shores. By comparison, the 130 turbine Cape Wind project on Horseshoe Shoal will generate 468 megawatts of electricity.

State officials lauded the start of the leasing process.

“The Request for Interest issued by the Obama administration today begins a process that will lead to up to 4,000 megawatts of wind energy installed far off our shores — enough electricity to power 1.7 million households and equal to the electricity currently generated by all the coal-fired plants in Massachusetts — and take this new U.S. industry from infancy to maturity,” outgoing secretary of the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, said on Tuesday.

“Let there be no question that Massachusetts is, and will be, the nation’s offshore wind leader — spurring technological innovation and technology to reduce costs and improve performance,” his statement continued.

The Request for Interest is intended to gauge interest from potential developers in the area. At a meeting in Rhode Island earlier this month, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior Ned Farquhar announced that the government hoped to develop 10.3 gigawatts of electricity in Atlantic waters. At up to a potential 4 gigawatts, the area south of the Vineyard seems poised to shoulder much of that load.

Almost 12 months ago, Island members of the state’s renewable energy task force, a group that includes representatives from Vineyard town government as well as members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and the Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association, received a draft of the Request for Interest map, which the Gazette published on its front page. That map covered almost 4,000 nautical square miles south of the Vineyard and Nantucket.

In September it was announced by state and local officials that after consultation with the task force they would agree to push development in federal waters south of the Island from nine miles to at least 13.8 miles offshore and almost entirely off of Nantucket Shoals. That move was lauded by town officials at the time.

“I’m getting really encouraged,” Oak Bluffs selectmen Kathy Burton said in a September selectmen’s meeting. “They actually listened to us and restudied the fisheries.”

At 2,224 nautical square miles the Request for Interest map unveiled on Tuesday still covers a wide swath of ocean south of the Vineyard, but far less than originally proposed. Still, some on the Island task force, such as Tisbury selectman Tristan Israel, would like to see that boundary pushed past 21 miles, a point at which visual impacts are eliminated. A line on the Request for Interest map acknowledges that boundary.

Massachusetts officials are determined to make wind power the next growth industry in the Commonwealth and in Tuesday’s announcement the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs boasted a number of developments to that end. In Charlestown the nation’s largest wind blade testing facility will open in the new year. The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal is the first U.S. facility with the capability to construct and assemble offshore turbines and the Massachusetts company Mass Tank is expected to build the turbine monopoles for all in-state projects. In addition, the German engineering conglomerate Siemens is opening its North American offshore wind headquarters in Boston and TRI Composites Inc., a leading manufacturer of turbine blades, is expanding its operations to Fall River.

In September Vineyard Power director Richard Andre said that the fledgling Island energy cooperative was preparing to bid on lease blocks where it hopes to develop up to 17 turbines by 2015 to deliver energy to its members. Mr. Andre was unavailable for comment for this story.

Not everyone is enthused about the push however. Megan Ottens-Sargent of the community-based wind opposition group POINT (Protect Our Islands Now for Tomorrow) worries about a rush to develop an area where she says there is a paucity of data on environmental and commercial concerns that could inform government officials in their siting decisions.

“One of my concerns is that its an unfolding process and, although ultimately there will be a process for public comment and assessing impacts, in the meantime we’re relying on data that is inadequate for determining what blocks are being offered for lease,” she told the Gazette on Wednesday.

The renewable energy task force has until Feb. 28 to submit responses to the RFI.