Offshore wind power is the use of wind farms constructed in bodies of water, usually in the ocean on the continental shelf, to harvest wind energy to generate electricity. Higher wind speeds are available offshore compared to on land, so offshore wind power’s electricity generation is higher per amount of capacity installed and NIMBY opposition to construction is usually much weaker. Offshore wind power includes inshore water areas such as lakes, fjords and sheltered coastal areas, using traditional fixed-bottom wind turbine technologies, as well as deeper-water areas utilizing floating wind turbines.
News
What Ails Offshore Wind: Supply Chains, Ships and Interest Rates
Government officials and energy developers misjudged the difficulty of building huge clean energy projects in the United States, which has built very few of them. A few years ago, interest in offshore wind energy was so strong that developers proposed spending tens of billions of dollars to plunk hundreds of turbines the size of skyscrapers in the Atlantic Ocean from Maine to Virginia. But several of those projects have recently hit the skids after executives miscalculated the impact that the pandemic and rising interest rates would have on supply chains.
Developing Offshore Wind in US Waters Part 1: The Planning and Regulatory Framework
The deployment of offshore wind energy facilities in US waters has tremendous potential to help the country deliver on its climate change commitments and clean energy goals. It is also a reality beginning to take shape with the first commercial-scale facilities beginning construction in 2023 in the Northeast US. In Part 1 of our webinar series on ocean wind energy in US waters, we will explore the historical and policy background and framing behind the US wind energy transition, including an introduction to the planning and regulation processes and the players involved. This webinar will set the groundwork for future discussions exploring offshore wind energy, its future in US waters, and its compatibility and interactions with marine protected areas and other ocean uses.
Presented by: Brian Hooker of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Betsy Nicholson of the NOAA Office for Coastal Management, and Joy Page of the US Department of Energy Wind Energy Technology Office
Offshore Wind Energy Basics Webinar: Navigating Offshore Wind Energy Decision-Making Processes
Recently, WINDExchange hosted a webinar about the decision-making processes for offshore wind energy siting and permitting with a focus on the points at which community leaders, property owners, and other local stakeholders can meaningfully engage with these processes. Missed the event? Watch the webinar recording.
DOE Launches Funding Opportunity to Improve Wind Turbine Composite Materials
DOE announced $30 million in funding to advance composite materials and additive manufacturing for large wind turbines, including for offshore wind energy systems. This funding opportunity seeks to improve the manufacturability and performance of composite materials—materials made up of multiple constituents, such as polymers and fibers. Projects funded through this initiative will help address the priorities established in DOE’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain Road Map and Floating Offshore Wind Shot™, as well as the Biden administration’s goals to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and achieve a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.
The Floating Offshore Wind Shot is an initiative to help usher in a clean energy future by driving U.S. leadership in floating offshore wind design, development, and manufacturing.
It is part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Earthshots Initiative to tackle key remaining technical challenges to reaching U.S. climate goals while creating jobs and economic opportunities for U.S. communities.
Floating offshore wind is key to transitioning dense population centers to clean energy, and would also mean thousands of jobs in wind manufacturing, installation, and operations.
The Floating Offshore Wind Energy Shot seeks to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind energy by at least 70%, to $45 per megawatt-hour by 2035 for deep sites far from shore.
About two-thirds of U.S. offshore wind energy potential exists over waters too deep for today’s fixed-bottom wind turbine foundations secured directly to the sea floor, and instead require floating platforms. These structures will be among the largest humankind has ever constructed. Achieving the Floating Offshore Wind Shot goals will require an all-out effort to develop a robust domestic supply chain, reduce technology costs, and plan and build out needed transmission.
BOEM Identifies First Two Offshore Wind Areas in the Gulf of Mexico
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced that it has identified two wind energy areas (WEAs) on the Gulf Outer Continental Shelf, both within the giant 30 million acre call area announced in November.
The first draft WEA is located about 24 nautical miles off the coast of Galveston. The area for review totals nearly 550,000 acres and has the potential to power 2.3 million homes with clean wind energy. A portion has been removed from the center of the region to account for shrimp-fishing interests.
The second draft WEA is located about 56 nm off the coast of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The area for review totals 190,000 acres and has the potential to power 800,000 homes
From Policy To Power: Federal Actions to Deliver on America’s Offshore Wind Potential
Offshore wind is a critical part of making a rapid transition to clean energy, including meeting the Biden administration’s goals of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy-wide no later than 2050. This report by the Ocean Conservancy outlines a series of recommendations that, if implemented, would significantly increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and regulatory certainty of the U.S. offshore wind planning and permitting system and, in so doing, maximize both the deployment of offshore wind and the overall health and sustainability of ocean ecosystems. These recommendations are built on the foundation of lessons learned from working to permit offshore wind over the past decade as well as discussions with experts in federal ocean policy, federal agency permitting staff, and ocean users, including those from the conservation, maritime, and fishing industries.
Duke, TotalEnergies winning bidders in wind lease auction
Federal officials Wednesday auctioned two lease areas off the North Carolina and South Carolina coast, the second major offshore wind lease sale of 2022. The provisional winner for renewable energy lease No. OCS-A 0545, the westernmost, 54,937-acre section of the Carolina Long Bay area was TotalEnergies Renewables USA, LLC, which bid $160 million. Duke Energy Renewables Wind, LLC was the provisional winner for lease No. OCS-A 0546, a 55,154-acre area, with a $155 million bid.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says the two sections together, if developed, could generate 1.3 gigawatts or more, enough to power nearly 500,000 homes.
How will offshore wind energy affect marine life in the Gulf? Feds are taking a look
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the federal agency that oversees offshore oil, gas and wind permitting, has begun crafting a draft environmental assessment for a 30 million-acre area stretching from the Mississippi River to the Texas-Mexico border. The assessment will consider how the construction and operation of offshore wind turbines affects fisheries, marine mammals, birds and other elements of the marine environment. BOEM plans to narrow its assessment area based on input from wind energy developers, fishers and other groups.
The Gulf has the potential to generate more than 500,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy per year, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That’s twice the current energy needs of all five Gulf states, and larger than the potential offshore wind capacity of the Pacific Coast and Great Lakes combined.
Information about BOEM’s environmental assessment and instructions on how to comment are available at boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/gulf-mexico-activities.
Biden Administration Jumpstarts Offshore Wind Energy Projects to Create Jobs
The Biden Administration is taking coordinated steps to support rapid offshore wind deployment and job creation. These actions include:
- Advance ambitious wind energy projects to create good-paying, union jobs
- Creation of a new priority Wind Energy Area in the New York Bight—an area of shallow waters between Long Island and the New Jersey coast.
- Establishment of a target of employing tens of thousands of workers to deploy 30 Gigawatts (30,000 megawatts) of offshore wind by 2030.
- Advancement of critical permitting milestones for the Ocean Wind Offshore Wind Project.
- Invest in American infrastructure to strengthen the domestic supply chain and deploy offshore wind energy
- Invest in port infrastructure to support offshore wind.
- Provide access to $3 billion in debt capital to support offshore wind industry through the DOE Loan Programs Office
- Support critical research and development and data-sharing.
- Establish offshore wind R&D funding through the National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium.
- Partner with Industry on data-sharing.
- Study offshore wind impacts.
Publications
| Name | Description | Year |
|---|---|---|
| From Policy To Power: Federal Actions to Deliver on America’s Offshore Wind Potential | Offshore wind is a critical part of making a rapid transition to clean energy, including meeting the Biden administration’s goals of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy-wide no later than 2050. This report by the Ocean Conservancy outlines a series of recommendations that, if implemented, would significantly increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and regulatory certainty of the U.S. offshore wind planning and permitting system and, in so doing, maximize both the deployment of offshore wind and the overall health and sustainability of ocean ecosystems. These recommendations are built on the foundation of lessons learned from working to permit offshore wind over the past decade as well as discussions with experts in federal ocean policy, federal agency permitting staff, and ocean users, including those from the conservation, maritime, and fishing industries. | 2022 |
| Impacts of turbine and plant upsizing on the levelized cost of energy for offshore wind | This study shows the scale of the savings accrued through the use of taller wind turbines with a level of detail that was not previously available. The research, by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, shows a 24 percent savings per unit of electricity for a hypothetical wind farm using 20-megawatt offshore wind turbines, compared to a wind farm using 6-megawatt turbines | 2021 |
| 2017 State of Wind Development in the United States by Region | National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers published 2017 State of Wind Development in the United States by Region, a comprehensive examination of U.S. wind energy development and deployment. The report is compiled by NREL with input from six Regional Resource Centers, which have received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and provide regional information to communities to help them evaluate wind energy potential and learn about wind power's benefits and impacts. The report summarizes the status of and drivers for U.S. wind energy development in 2017, including state-level information on workforce development, manufacturing and economic development, key stakeholder groups, and development challenges. | 2018 |
| Oil Giants See a Future in Offshore Wind Power. Their Suppliers Are Investing, Too. | Analysts forecast a sixfold increase in offshore wind power capacity by 2030, but while Europe's market booms, U.S. growth has been slow. That may be changing. | 2018 |
| Year-Round Spatiotemporal Distribution of Harbour Porpoises Within and Around the Maryland Wind Energy Area | Incorporating more than 18 months of harbour porpoise detection data from passive acoustic monitoring, generalized auto-regressive moving average and generalized additive models were used to investigate harbour porpoise occurrence within and around the Maryland WEA in relation to temporal and environmental variables. Acoustic detection metrics were compared to habitat-based density estimates derived from aerial and boat-based sightings to validate the model predictions. Harbour porpoises occurred significantly more frequently during January to May, and foraged significantly more often in the evenings to early mornings at sites within and outside the Maryland WEA. The acoustic detections were significantly correlated with the predicted densities, except at the most inshore site. | 2017 |
| An Assessment of the Economic Potential of Offshore Wind in the United States from 2015 to 2030 | This study describes an assessment of the site-specific variation of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and levelized avoided cost of energy (LACE)to understand the economic potential of fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind technologies in major U.S. coastal areas between 2015 and 2030. The study documents in detail the variation in economic potential across more than 7,000 U.S. coastal locations by comparing site-specific LCOE and LACE. In particular, this study offers insights into the available U.S. offshore wind resource by region at different levels of LCOE and an assessment of the present and future economic potential of that resource capacity out to 2030. | 2017 |
| Geophysical potential for wind energy over the open oceans | Wind speeds over open ocean areas are often higher than those in the windiest areas over land, which has motivated a quest to develop technologies that could harvest wind energy in deep water environments. However, it remains unclear whether these open ocean wind speeds are higher because of lack of surface drag or whether a greater downward transport of kinetic energy may be sustained in open ocean environments. Focusing on the North Atlantic region, we provide evidence that there is potential for greater downward transport of kinetic energy in the overlying atmosphere. As a result, wind power generation over some ocean areas can exceed power generation on land by a factor of three or more. | 2017 |
| Obligations and aspirations: A critical evaluation of offshore wind farm cumulative impact assessments | To investigate how robust current cumulative impact assessment practice is, a novel evaluation framework was developed and applied to Environmental Statements of the world's largest offshore wind farms, currently in United Kingdom waters. The framework was designed to evaluate cumulative impact assessments relative to the information needs of decision-makers tasked with managing cumulative effects. We found that current practice does not meet those needs, that there is dissonance between science and practice, and problematic variability between assessments was observed. Straightforward recommendations for improved practice are provided, which if implemented may ease the perceived regulatory burden by clarifying practice. We also highlight additional steps that could enable project-led cumulative impact assessments to better support regional marine management. | 2017 |
| The challenge of integrating offshore wind power in the U.S. electric grid. Part II: Simulation of electricity market operations | The purpose of this two-part study is to analyze large penetrations of offshore wind power into a large electric grid, using the case of the grid operated by PJM Interconnection in the northeastern U.S. Part I of the study introduces the wind forecast error model and Part II, this paper, describes Smart-ISO, a simulator of PJM's planning process for generator scheduling, including day-ahead and intermediate-term commitments to energy generators and real-time economic dispatch. Results show that, except in summer, an unconstrained transmission grid can meet the load at five build-out levels spanning 7–70 GW of capacity, with the addition of at most 1–8 GW of reserves. | 2017 |
| 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report | This annual report—now in its tenth year—provides a detailed overview of developments and trends in the U.S. wind power market, with a particular focus on 2015. Annual wind power capacity additions in the United States surged in 2015 and are projected to continue at a rapid clip in the coming five years. Recent and projected near-term growth is supported by the industry’s primary federal incentive—the production tax credit (PTC)—as well as a myriad of state-level policies. Wind additions are also being driven by improvements in the cost and performance of wind power technologies, yielding low power sales prices for utility, corporate, and other purchasers. At the same time, the prospects for growth beyond the current PTC cycle remain uncertain: growth could be blunted by declining federal tax support, expectations for low natural gas prices, and modest electricity demand growth. | 2016 |
| 2015 Distributed Wind Market Report Fact Sheet | Distributed wind cumulative capacity now totals 934 MW from over 75,000 turbines. In 2015, 28 states added 28 MW of new distributed wind capacity, representing just over 1,700 turbines and a $102 million investment. | 2016 |
| 2015 Distributed Wind Market Report | The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) annual Distributed Wind Market Report provides stakeholders with statistics and analysis of the market along with insights into its trends and characteristics. By providing a comprehensive overview of the distributed wind market, this report can help plan and guide future investments and decisions by industry, utilities, federal and state agencies, and other interested parties. | 2016 |
| Establishing a legal research agenda for ocean energy | The literature on ocean energy has, to date, largely focused on technical, environmental, and, increasingly, social and political aspects. Legal and regulatory factors have received far less attention, despite their importance in supporting this new technology and ensuring its sustainable development. Building on the social sciences research agenda developed by the International network for Social Studies of Marine Energy (ISSMER) and published in Energy Policy, a complementary agenda for legal research linked to ocean energy was set out. Key directions for future research structured around the core themes of marine governance: (i) international law; (ii) environmental impacts; (iii) rights and ownership; (iv) consenting processes; and (v) management of marine space and resources were identified. | 2016 |
| The challenge of integrating offshore wind power in the U.S. electric grid. Part I: Wind forecast error | The purpose of this two-part study is to model the effects of large penetrations of offshore wind power into a large electric system using realistic wind power forecast errors and a complete model of unit commitment, economic dispatch, and power flow. The chosen electric system is PJM Interconnection, one of the largest independent system operators in the U.S. with a generation capacity of 186 Gigawatts (GW). The offshore wind resource along the U.S. East Coast is modeled at five build-out levels, varying between 7 and 70 GW of installed capacity, considering exclusion zones and conflicting water uses.This paper, Part I of the study, describes in detail the wind forecast error model. | 2016 |
| Offshore Energy by the Numbers, an Economic Analysis of Offshore Drilling and Wind Energy in the Atlantic | Oceana, an international organization focused solely on protecting oceans, produced an analysis which finds that the economic benefits of offshore drilling in the Atlantic projected by the oil and gas industries appear to be exaggerated due to the inclusion of oil and gas resources that are not economically recoverable, thereby inflating the potential benefits. Industry estimates also rely upon an assumption of a state revenue-sharing system that does not exist. Oceana’s report also finds that offshore oil and gas development along the Atlantic could put at risk some of the nearly 1.4 million jobs and over $95 billion in gross domestic product that rely on healthy ocean ecosystems, mainly through fishing, tourism and recreation. The report includes fact sheets for seven Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern states including Georgia. | 2015 |
| Sound exposure in harbor seals during the installation of an offshore wind farm: predictions of auditory damage | We report on a behavioral study during the construction of a wind farm using data from GPS/GSM tags on 24 harbor seals Phocavitulina L. Pile driving data and acoustic propagation models, together with seal movement and dive data, allowed the prediction of auditory damage in each seal. Growth and recovery functions for auditory damage were combined to predict temporary auditory threshold shifts in each seal. Comparison to exposure criteria suggests that half of the seals exceeded estimated permanent auditory damage thresholds. | 2015 |
| Wind Vision: A New Era for Wind Power in the United States | The Wind Vision report updates and expands upon the DOE’s 2008 report, 20% Wind Energy by 2030, through analysis of scenarios of wind power supplying 10% of national end-use electricity demand by 2020, 20% by 2030, and 35% by 2050. The Wind Vision analysis concludes that it is both viable and economically compelling to deploy U.S. wind power generation in a portfolio of domestic, low-carbon, low-pollutant power generation solutions at the Study Scenario levels. | 2015 |
| Engaging Communities in Offshore Wind: Case Studies and Lessons Learned from New England Islands | With several offshore wind farms currently under consideration off the U.S. Atlantic seaboard, offshore wind has the potential to be an abundant source of renewable, low-carbon electricity. Island communities throughout New England are leading the way in developing effective approaches for engaging with offshore wind developers. The report highlights key insights for designing good community engagement processes and demonstrates these best practices through case studies from Block Island (Rhode Island), Martha's Vineyard (Massachusetts), and Monhegan (Maine). | 2015 |
| Offshore Wind Jobs and Economic Development Impacts in the United States: Four Regional Scenarios | This technical report shares the results and shows that an offshore wind industry in the United States has the potential to support thousands of jobs—even at relatively conservative levels of deployment and domestic supply chain growth. The fixed-bottom offshore wind Jobs and Economic Development Impacts (JEDI) model is one of several user-friendly National Renewable Energy Laboratory JEDI models that estimate the economic impacts of constructing and operating power generation and biofuel plants at the state and local levels. | 2015 |
| Environmental Assessment, Lease Issuance for Wind Resources Data Collection on the Outer Continental Shelf Offshore Georgia | BOEM prepared this Environmental Assessment (EA) to consider the reasonably foreseeable environmental consequences of lease issuance and, in particular, whether issuing a lease will result in significant environmental impacts. The activities associated with the EA include 1) site characterization surveys; and, 2) site assessment activities. | 2014 |
| A Survey of State Regulation of Offshore Wind Facilities | This report outlines the federal leasing process for offshore wind developments and also reviewed the regulations of nine eastern coast states and the Gulf Coast states of Texas and Louisiana. The report contains matrices of federal state statues that affect offshore wind permitting as well as a general discussion of state regulatory policy, Coastal Zone Management Act consistency review, permitting requirements for underwater cables and transmission lines, and local government permitting. The report also includes individual state discussions of offshore wind development, and of offshore project and research activities. | 2013 |
| Offshore Wind Energy: Considerations for Georgia | This document provides background information about offshore wind energy, with a specific focus on potential development in Georgia coastal waters. Part I is an introduction to the use of offshore wind as a renewable energy source; Part II provides an overview of the components of a wind installation; Part III discusses factors that are considered in siting a wind facility; Part IV describes the environmental considerations associated with such a project; and Part V describes planning tools and ongoing offshore wind energy initiatives along with concluding notes. | 2011 |
| Executive Summary for Offshore Wind Energy: Considerations for Georgia | This is a two-page summary of the report. | 2011 |
Tools
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| WINDExchange Offshore Wind Resource Maps | In addition to providing the estimated average annual wind speed 90 and 100 meters above the ocean surface, the WINDExchange offshore wind resource maps also display varying water depths. Because the depth of water impacts the type of wind turbine structure required (fixed-bottom or floating turbines), this information is important for offshore wind development planning. For additional data, check out the offshore wind potential tables, which break down wind resources by annual wind speed, water depth, and distance from shore. |
| Wind Energy Technologies Office Projects Map | The Department of Energy's Wind Energy Technologies Office leads the nation's efforts to research and develop innovative technologies, lower the costs, and enable and accelerate the deployment of wind energy throughout the nation. The office has a comprehensive portfolio and invests through cooperative agreements with a variety of businesses, universities, laboratories, and other organizations. Learn more about the Office's R&D portfolio through the interactive map below. Users can apply the filters on the left or click on a specific state. The projects that meet your chosen criteria will populate in a table below the map. Further refinement can be made by adjusting the filters or using the search box to control the information displayed, or zoom in to see projects in any specific region or state. |
| An Assessment of the Economic Potential of Offshore Wind in the United States from 2015 to 2030 | Output data from an NREL report entitled "An Assessment of the Economic Potential of Offshore Wind in the United States from 2015 to 2030" (NREL/TP-6A20-67675), which analyzes the spatial variation of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and levelized avoided cost of energy (LACE) to understand the economic potential of fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind technologies across more than 7,000 U.S. coastal sites between 2015 and 2030. |
| Georgia Coastal and Marine Planner | Georgia Tech's Center for Geographic Information Systems and Strategic Energy Institute, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resources Division, launched a new marine spatial planning tool: the Georgia Coastal and Marine Planner (GCAMP). The tool aims to define a clear process for offshore energy licensing and permitting in Georgia, and close data and communication gaps between regulatory agencies that could delay the permitting process. GCAMP creates a central repository for public data and information relating to Georgia's coastline. The application provides industry, governmental agencies, and research institutions engaged in the planning and management of Georgia's ocean resources with a series of tools and interactive maps to aid in the assessment of potential locations for offshore development. |
| WEC-Sim: The Open-Source Wave Energy Converter Simulator | WEC-Sim (Wave Energy Converter Simulator) is an open-source wave energy converter (WEC) simulation tool. The code is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK using the multi-body dynamics solver SimMechanics. WEC-Sim has the ability to model devices that are comprised of rigid bodies, power-take-off systems, and mooring systems. Simulations are performed in the time-domain by solving the governing WEC equations of motion in 6 degrees-of-freedom as described in the WEC-Sim Theory Manual. The WEC-Sim project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind and Water Power Technologies Office and the code development effort is a collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). |
| Jobs and Economic Development Impacts (JEDI) Wind model | The modeling tool, Offshore Wind Jobs and Economic Development Impacts, illustrates the potential economic impact and number of jobs associated with fixed-bottom offshore wind technology development, and applies to areas of the country that have waters shallow enough for fixed-bottom offshore wind technology. |
| Tethys Database | ethys is a publicly available searchable online database of environmental effects information developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to support the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind and Water Power Program. It houses scientific literature pertaining to the environmental effects of marine energy systems, as well as metadata on international ocean energy projects and research studies. The primary function of Tethys is to facilitate data sharing and the exchange of information on the environmental effects of marine hydrokinetic and offshore wind technology. In addition to the Knowledge Base, Tethys supports a Map Viewer website which compiles documents, U.S. permitting sites, and international project sites and research studies that are associated with a geographic location. This view allows panning and zooming, while results can be narrowed by keyword searches. |
| Virtual Wind Simulator Will Help Optimize Offshore Energy Production | An advanced modeling tool funded by the Energy Department is now available to help offshore wind plant developers, wind turbine original equipment manufacturers, and researchers design offshore turbine and foundation systems. Created by the University of Minnesota, the Virtual Flow Simulator (VFS-Wind) is a downloadable, open-source software tool developed to help users optimize the amount of power produced by offshore wind plants. This computational fluid dynamics package simulates offshore wind turbines, foundations, and plants and is capable of modeling the complex interactions among the atmosphere, wind turbines, foundations, and ocean waves. |
Projects
| Name | Description | Year |
|---|---|---|
| BOEM seeks comment on more NC, SC wind leasing options | The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is considering a lease sale for the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area, offshore of the North Carolina-South Carolina border. BOEM is preparing a supplemental environmental assessment to consider the additional wind leasing options for the area. | 2021 |
| Biden administration puts Vineyard Wind energy project back on track | The long-delayed Vineyard Wind offshore project has been put back on track by the Biden administration. In one of her first actions as the new director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Amanda Lefton pledged on Wednesday to conduct a “robust and timely” review of Vineyard Wind and essentially resume the permitting process where it left off in December. | 2021 |
| Oil Giants See a Future in Offshore Wind Power. Their Suppliers Are Investing, Too. | Analysts forecast a sixfold increase in offshore wind power capacity by 2030, but while Europe's market booms, U.S. growth has been slow. That may be changing. | 2018 |
| New York State to Seek 800 Megawatts of Offshore Wind Power | New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a call for solicitations for at least 800 megawatts of offshore wind in 2018 and 2019 to "position New York as the leading offshore wind market in the United States" and to drive competition to "reduce costs and create new well-paying jobs." The resulting energy would power 400,000 New York households. Last year the Governor announced a call for 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind in the state by 2030, or enough to power up to 1.2 million homes. According to the Blueprint for the New York State Offshore Wind Master Plan, the state plans to meet 50% of its electricity needs from renewable resources by 2030. | 2018 |
| America's First Offshore Wind Energy Makes Landfall in Rhode Island | Offshore wind works for Block Island, where the economics of fossil fuels no longer makes sense. Can it also be a key part of the energy mix for the coastal U.S.? | 2017 |
| Project Looks to Tap Gulf Stream’s Energy | As the Gulf Stream passes Cape Hatteras, the movement of water is some 45 times greater than the flow of every river on earth. That amount of moving water represents an extraordinary amount of potential energy, enough energy, according to the Coastal Studies Institute, that harnessing just 0.1 percent of the available power would yield the equivalent of 150 nuclear power plants. That’s 300 gigawatts of power. For the past four years, the Coastal Studies Institute’s North Carolina Renewable Ocean Energy Research Program has been studying the Gulf Stream, trying to determine if its power can be harnessed. | 2017 |
| Team Tracks Ocean Energy from Land, Sea | Research on an Observational and Modeling Study of the Physical Processes Driving Exchanges between the Shelf and the Deep Ocean at Cape Hatteras (PEACH) is meant to answer critical questions about the ocean’s response to climate change and the influence of marine ecosystem dynamics. Water exchanges between the shelf and deep ocean are relevant to global carbon budgets, transport of larvae and pollutants and knowledge of storm tracks and intensity. | 2017 |
| Nation’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Will Be Built Off Long Island | The Long Island Power Authority approved the nation’s largest offshore wind farm on Wednesday, set for the waters between the eastern tip of Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. The farm, with as many as 15 turbines capable of powering 50,000 average homes over all, is the first of several planned by the developer, Deepwater Wind. It will be in a 256-square-mile parcel, with room for as many as 200 turbines that the company is leasing from the federal government. | 2017 |
| Maryland approves two offshore wind farms | The projects by U.S. Wind Inc. and Skipjack Offshore Energy will have a combined 368 megawatts of capacity with 77 turbines at least 14 miles off the coast, Maryland’s Public Service Commission said. | 2017 |
| Interior Department Auctions Over 122,000 Acres Offshore Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for Wind Energy Development | The BOEM announced the completion of the nation’s seventh competitive lease sale for renewable wind energy in federal waters. A Wind Energy Area of 122,405 acres offshore Kitty Hawk, North Carolina received the high bid from Avangrid Renewables, LLC, the provisional winner. Using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s estimates of 3 megawatts (MW) per square kilometer, the lease area has a potential generating capacity of 1,486 MW, enough energy to power more than 500,000 homes. The actual size of the wind energy project will be determined by the developer. | 2017 |
| NREL to Study Feasibility of Gulf of Mexico Offshore Wind | The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will carry out a new survey to examine the feasibility of various potential offshore renewable energy resources in the Gulf of Mexico, primarily offshore wind to determine if the region can transform 50 years of offshore manufacturing and deployment expertise into a thriving offshore industry. The Department of Energy’s Wind Vision Report aims to install 86 million gigawatts of offshore wind by 2050, with the Gulf Coast playing a large role. These states—Florida, Texas, and Louisiana particularly—will contribute 10%, or 8.6 gigawatts, of offshore wind energy to help achieve the Wind Vision’s goals. | 2017 |
| Offshore wind push | Injecting large amounts of offshore wind power into the U.S. electrical grid is manageable, will cut electricity costs, and will reduce pollution compared to current fossil fuel sources, according to researchers from the University of Delaware and Princeton University who have completed a first-of-its-kind simulation with the electric power industry. | 2017 |
| Bay State Wind Receives First Offshore Wind Site Assessment Plan Approval in the United States | The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has issued its first approval of an offshore wind Site Assessment Plan (SAP) to Bay State Wind, a utility-scale offshore wind project in Massachusetts located 15 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard in the Atlantic Ocean. Bay State Wind’s next step will be deployment of the FLiDAR WindSentinel system off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard to measure wave and wind speeds in the project’s lease area. The system is currently deployed for two years, and includes a camera to broadcast images from the system as it collects data. | 2017 |
| Dominion Energy Virginia and Dong Energy team up for offshore wind project | Dominion Energy Virginia has signed an agreement and strategic partnership with Denmark's Dong Energy to construct two 6-megawatt turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. In an announcement on Monday, Dominion Energy said that it remained sole owner of the project, and that the two businesses would start to refine agreements for engineering, procurement and construction. The business added that it was the mid-Atlantic's first offshore wind project in a federal lease area. | 2017 |
| UMaine debuting ocean simulator to test sea-bound technology | The University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center has created a miniature indoor ocean that will simulate a stormy ocean to help innovators find out if their creations can withstand the sea's strength. The indoor facility, six years in the making, will be able to simulate waves over 100 feet tall and winds of more than 200 mph on scale models to test products such as offshore wind, tidal and wave energy facilities; aquaculture ventures; oil and gas equipment and critical infrastructure such as ports and bridges. | 2015 |
| Interior Department Launches First Step to Develop Wind Energy Offshore South Carolina | The U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a call for information and nominations to gauge the offshore wind industry's interest in acquiring commercial wind leases in four areas offshore South Carolina, totaling more than 1,100 square miles on the Outer Continental Shelf, and to request comments regarding site conditions, resources, and other uses in and near those areas. | 2015 |
| Remote Data Collected by High-Tech Research Buoy Now Available to Offshore Wind Industry | One of two research buoys commissioned by the Energy Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has ended a 19-month deployment off Virginia Beach, Virginia. During this time, the heavily instrumented buoy collected a wealth of information, which forms the first publicly accessible database to help improve offshore turbine development and reduce barriers to private investment in the offshore wind industry. The data collected by the Energy Department buoys is accessible to the public. | 2016 |
Resources
| Name | Description | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Wind Turbines: the Bigger, the Better | The average hub height for offshore turbines in the United States is projected to grow from 330 feet (100 m) in 2016 to about 500 feet (150 m), or about the height of the Washington Monument, in 2035. | 2021 |
| Wind Turbines in Extreme Weather: Solutions for Hurricane Resiliency | Although hurricanes and the damage they can cause remain difficult to predict, with current R&D, the Energy Department is taking steps to alleviate potential risks to offshore wind systems that will eventually be deployed in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic regions | 2018 |
| Offshore wind farms could protect coastlines | Offshore wind farms may have a greater capacity for coastal protection than first imagined. Simulations featuring data from Hurricane Harvey suggest that smart wind farm designs have the capacity to protect coastlines from heavy rains. | 2018 |
| Wind On The Waves: Floating Wind Power Is Becoming A Reality | Researchers and engineers are finding ways to create platforms that float, while giving the top-heavy turbine enough stability to operate effectively. Tethered to the sea floor, floating foundations allow wind turbines to operate in areas where water depths may be greater than 165 feet. This technology, is already successful at the prototype stage, with more extensive test and demonstration projects underway. | 2017 |
| U.S. Conditions Drive Innovation in Offshore Wind Foundations | As offshore wind projects move further from shore, jacket structures, which typically consist of four legs connected by braces, are becoming more common. Block Island—the first U.S. offshore wind farm—used a “gulf-style” jacket foundation with an installation method adapted from the offshore oil and gas industry. | 2017 |
| Offshore Wind Moves into Energy’s Mainstream | As offshore wind technology has improved and demand for renewable energy has risen, costs have fallen, making it more attractive to financial investors. | 2017 |
| Offshore Wind Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Energy | This four-page factsheet provides an overview of the Department of Energy’s offshore wind activities, including research, development and demonstration projects, since 2011. | 2017 |
| Wind Technology Resource Center | The Wind Technology Resource Center (WTRC) provides a central repository for research reports, publications, data sets, and online tools developed by DOE’s national laboratories and facilities. These information resources detail wind-energy-related analyses, studies, technology design, tests, and field experiments conducted by the labs from 1980 to the present. The WTRC offers a variety of ways for users to browse resources, including by topic, technology, application, and state, or search based on keywords. Visitors to the resource center can begin their search with a keyword and continue narrowing the field using a host of filters on the results page. In addition to R&D topics, technology, application, and state, users can filter by organization and resource type to create a highly tailored list. | N/A |
| Offshore Wind Energy | This site provides an introduction to offshore wind energy including: offshore wind energy resources; commercial offshore wind energy generation; offshore wind energy technology; transport of wind-generated energy; environmental considerations; and links to sources for further information. | N/A |
| Offshore Wind Research and Development | With declining offshore wind energy costs globally and the first U.S. offshore wind farm installed off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016, offshore wind has the potential to contribute significantly to a clean, affordable, and secure national energy mix. Learn more about the U.S. Energy Department's offshore wind initiatives on their website and fact sheet. | N/A |
| Offshore Wind Hub | The Offshore Wind Hub collects all major reports, laws, environmental assessments, and other documents related to offshore wind policy, technology, economics, and siting in the Atlantic Coast states. The site offers open access to hundreds of documents. The site is searchable by state, topic, or key words. The listings are updated regularly for the individual states, but the listings for the federal government are not necessarily complete. | N/A |