Offshore wind has been getting numerous consideration these days—some good, some much less good. As in different elements of the financial system, excessive rates of interest hit the offshore wind business laborious, given the billions of {dollars} required upfront to construct a single venture, and inflation didn’t assist. Provide chain crunches even have hit, together with with the provision of the particular ships that assist set up these enormous machines. The outcomes embody two builders cancelling their offshore wind energy contracts with states and utilities, one other cancelling two tasks altogether, and hesitation elsewhere.
The excellent news-bad information steadiness, although, would appear to tip decidedly in favor of a complete lot extra offshore wind. Why? There are 5 good causes: energy, place, folks, coverage, and value.
Energy
Offshore wind is highly effective, together with after we want it most. The winds off our coasts are a few of the strongest on this planet. That’s significantly true off the Northeast, West Coast, and Hawaii, however contains elements of the Gulf Coast and the Nice Lakes, too.
Equally essential is when that wind is prone to blow. Within the Northeast, for instance, offshore wind is strongest in winter. That timing makes it a vastly essential potential useful resource when winter hits laborious and fossil fuels fail. And it’ll make it much more essential when winter electrical energy demand will increase as a result of extra households are utilizing electrical warmth pumps. It additionally makes offshore wind an essential seasonal complement to the area’s considerable and rising solar energy capability.
![](https://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/NREL-offshore-wind-resource-map.jpg)
Place
Offshore wind has the distinct benefit, for many people as shoppers, of being near the place numerous electrical energy demand is. The topography of the US Outer Continental Shelf means shallow waters for tens of miles off a lot of the East and Gulf coasts, which makes for simpler wind turbine set up. And greater than 60 p.c of US residents dwell in coastal states, with one other 20 p.c in states bordering one of many Nice Lakes. Plus, offshore wind energy can stretch far past the coasts, given regional electrical grids and electrical energy flows between areas.
Distinction the “location, location, location” attractiveness of offshore wind with the truth that lots of the potential offshore wind hotspot areas are on the different finish of the pipeline (literal or figurative) on the subject of fuels—as with New England and provides of gasoline (or coal, or oil).
Whereas new transmission strains are by no means straightforward, getting the facility again to shore can contain a straighter shot with a connection cable than is usually the case on land, even when tasks are sited far sufficient offshore to be largely or totally invisible from land. The ocean mattress has a various panorama with loads of challenges, however coping with a single entity—the Bureau of Ocean Vitality Administration (BOEM)—for federally managed waters does have benefits over the potential patchwork of landowners for land-based transmission. (Venture builders do, nevertheless, must additionally work out the items in state waters and on land.)
Individuals
A robust consideration for a lot of in advocating for offshore wind is its potential to handle the dangerous results of fossil fuels within the energy sector, which disproportionately impression Black and Brown communities. Offshore wind era instantly displaces coal, gasoline, and oil energy and the varied pollution from these energy plant smokestacks, and reduces impacts upstream (from gasoline extraction, for instance) and down (together with water air pollution).
Offshore wind growth is also driving financial growth and revitalization, in addition to offering sturdy potential for plenty of high quality jobs. Unions and their allies, together with the Union of Involved Scientists, have known as for sturdy labor requirements in state offshore wind necessities, as within the essential offshore wind regulation Maine handed earlier this 12 months. Our coalitions even have pushed for workforce diversification.
Coverage
One other essential driver of offshore wind has been focused commitments from coastal states across the nation, usually within the type of requiring native utilities to contract with offshore wind builders. These mandated necessities alone whole greater than 40,000 megawatts (MW)—sufficient to produce the equal of greater than 15 million typical US households. And the necessities plus broader state offshore wind targets have been sturdy alerts to utilities and the business that states are critical about having offshore wind as an enormous a part of their electrical energy mixes for many years to return.
Lots of those self same states even have sturdy local weather and clear power targets, and commitments to extend renewable power and minimize carbon emissions—in lots of instances aimed toward zeroing out emissions from their electrical energy use and even throughout their economies. Offshore wind presents the most effective alternatives for large-scale, zero-carbon electrical energy manufacturing in some areas, and is a crucial instrument for diversifying the sources of unpolluted electrical energy.
Worth
Whereas this one could also be just a little tougher to ascertain given tendencies of late, there are sturdy the explanation why value is also a part of what’s prone to proceed to drive offshore wind. The costs related to tasks New York authorised in October may have twice as a lot impression on family electrical energy payments as ones authorised two years earlier, earlier than the pandemic restoration and associated financial results kicked in, the state estimates. And we’ll actually see costs on the upper finish for contracts awarded subsequent 12 months across the nation. However offshore wind’s many advantages have been enticing even earlier than costs began coming in a lot decrease and dropping far more rapidly than anticipated. Among the similar components that made these costs doable, together with the dimensions of tasks and the dimensions of the business, ought to finally assist push costs again down.
Offshore wind additionally presents a lot wanted value stability. Contracts between tasks and utilities or states supply 15 to twenty years of value certainty, one thing that will have been welcome certainly when methane gasoline costs shot upward within the wake of world turmoil and drove up electrical energy costs with them. Even with states now permitting bids to incorporate changes for inflation earlier than development, the generators—as soon as up and spinning—will supply beneficial predictability.
The place Issues Stand
So, there are many the explanation why offshore wind is enticing and has generated numerous consideration and assist—and why it’s making actual progress. Right here’s a style of what all that attractiveness, consideration, and assist is delivering:
Initiatives are getting by means of the allowing course of. The federal authorities issued ultimate approval to a fifth offshore wind venture in October and a sixth in November. BOEM additionally has simply issued a ultimate environmental impression assertion for one more venture, the ultimate stage earlier than it points a allow.
States are on the lookout for extra offshore wind proper now. New York’s October picks of recent renewable power tasks it was contracting with included three offshore wind tasks totaling 4,000 MW, and the state is at the moment looking for 4,300 MW extra in bids, due in January 2024. Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island have issued a joint request for proposals totaling 6,000 MW, additionally due in January. And New Jersey shall be issuing its personal request subsequent month for as a lot as 4,000 MW—one other sizable step towards assembly its nation-leading goal of 11,000 MW.
It’s taking place! Most essential for the seeing-is-believing crowd, development is underway for the primary generators in two tasks, and a 3rd has begun development on the onshore transmission it would want. The primary two tasks will add nearly 1,000 MW of offshore wind—sufficient to satisfy the equal of a half 1,000,000 households’ electrical energy wants. Earlier this month a kind of tasks, off Lengthy Island, delivered its first energy into New York’s electrical grid. The primary generators from the opposite superior venture, off Massachusetts, ought to start feeding energy into New England’s grid within the subsequent couple of weeks.
US offshore wind has confronted its justifiable share of obstacles, and the financial results of the pandemic restoration and a struggle in Jap Europe haven’t helped. However a few of the challenges, a minimum of (provide chain points, for instance), are fortunately momentary.
Most essential, a lot is driving on determining methods to hold making offshore wind occur, and occur nicely, that the sensible bets shall be on offshore wind rising in an enormous means, and shortly.