A presidential administration ready to tackle climate change may help — but it’s the years of planning that could really pay off.
By Tara Lohan
Five lonely wind turbines spin in the state waters off the coast of Rhode Island. They’re the entirety of the Block Island Wind Farm, the United States’ only commercial-scale offshore wind facility currently in service, with an installed capacity of just 30 megawatts.
By contrast, on-land
renewables are growing. We’ve installed more than 100 gigawatts of onshore wind capacity and 89 gigawatts of solar.
The Block Island project,
completed in 2016, remains a monument to possibility, though. And it’s one
that’s about to be realized.
Admittedly, no new
commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects will break water this year in
the United States. Despite that, the industry is poised for a big year. And we
desperately need it, experts say.
“If we’re thinking about powering the nation in line with global climate science assessments, we need serious investment in renewable energy and serious deployment,” says John Rogers, senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists. “And that includes large-scale offshore wind.”
Coastal states account for
80% of U.S. electricity demand and the federal government has estimated that
offshore wind has the technical potential to supply more than double the
country’s demand.
In the next decade our
existing five turbines could be joined by 2,000 more — a fleet of projects
capable of generating 22 gigawatts of energy.
Those projects would be
the result of years of work, efforts which experts say could begin to pay off
this year. East Coast states have set ambitious procurement targets for
offshore wind, technological advances have made costs competitive and European
companies have brought their experience stateside. A White House that will soon
look a whole lot greener is likely to be a big bonus.
“This year I think we will
break the logjam on project approvals,” says Jeremy Firestone, the director of
the Center for Research in Wind at the University of Delaware. “We might
consider that to be the beginning of pretty large and steep buildup.”
Still, it’s not all smooth
sailing ahead.
Vineyard Wind
Saga
In federal waters along
the Atlantic coast there are already 15 active leases for offshore wind
projects. Developers for 10 of those that have submitted their construction and
operations plans for the federal environmental review and permitting process.
But the fate of the
project that had been at the front of the line — Vineyard Wind — could
influence the rest.
The 800-megawatt project
of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables was set to be the
first utility-scale wind development in federal waters. If approved, it would
be built 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and could generate enough
electricity to power 400,000 homes.
Vineyard Wind initially
expected a federal permitting decision from BOEM in August 2019. But Interior
Secretary David Bernhardt unexpectedly announced his agency would instead
require a supplemental study to examine the cumulative impacts of all the other offshore wind projects planned in
Northeast and mid-Atlantic waters.
The move came after the
commercial fishing industry raised concerns that the turbines would interfere
with its operations.
The decision also sparked
worry among some that it was an intentional delay from President Trump, who’s
been outspoken about his dislike of wind energy, even falsely
claiming that turbines cause cancer.
“I think it’s important to
look closely at projects — and at suites of projects — but that process would
have been easier to take if it had been a little bit more predictable and if
there was less suspicion that some things were be done just to throw monkey
wrenches in the progress of particular projects,” says Rogers.
That supplement to the
Draft Environmental Impact Statement was published in June 2020, with the final
EIS expected this past December. But then the decision was delayed again. This time until January 15 —
just five days before Trump leaves office.
In response, Vineyard Wind
added its own speed bump to the process.
The developers announced
at the start of December that they wanted to hit pause and were temporarily
withdrawing the construction and operations plan so they could update their
project with the most recent technology. Replacing the planned 12-megawatt GE Haliade-X wind turbine with a new
13-megawatt turbine would enable the project to trim its 84 turbines to 62,
while still producing the same amount of power.
Despite the benefits of a
smaller price tag and footprint, experts speculated that the decision was a political calculation and
Vineyard Wind wanted to push off a decision on its project until the Biden
administration took the helm.
But Trump’s Interior
Department responded by declaring that the Vineyard Wind application was being terminated and its developers
would need to restart the application process for a federal permit.
What that means to the
timeline of the project, and the other developments waiting in the permitting
line behind it, is unclear. Years of scientific inquiry and project planning
have already been completed, so in theory, restarting the process wouldn’t be
starting from square one.
“BOEM already knows a lot
and they will still know a lot come Jan. 21,” says Rogers. “One could imagine
that they should remember what they know and, assuming that the science is
solid, they could proceed quickly.”
If Vineyard Wind does get
its eventual go-ahead from BOEM, the hope is that the completed cumulative
environmental impact statement could help speed up the process for other
projects in the pipeline.
“And that will give some
needed confidence to the industry and their investors that these projects are
going to move forward,” says Firestone.
It’s also likely that
another project will leapfrog Vineyard Wind. A 132-megawatt project in New York
by Ørsted and Eversource Energy is now next in the queue.
States Drive
Action
The federal approval
process is paramount, but we wouldn’t be standing on this precipice without a
few other factors, too. One of the biggest is the push from state governments
to mandate offshore wind procurement in the mix of clean energy solutions being
employed.
States from North Carolina
to Maine have used the legislative or regulatory process to call for upwards of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035.
Rogers predicts that offshore wind along the eastern seaboard “is going to be
the dominant piece of the expected power mix as we look to fully decarbonize.”
And while East coast
states are leading the charge, there’s offshore wind potential in other coastal
waters, too.
The Gulf Coast, now home
to the oil and gas industry, is readying for wind development. In November,
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards called on BOEM to start a task force to
coordinate leasing in federal waters in the Gulf.
On the West Coast,
California is studying where offshore wind power could best be sited. Because
of the depth of the waters, wind developments will likely be floating arrays —
a technology that’s been used in Europe and soon in Maine.
Even lakes are in play. In
the Midwest, Icebreaker Wind is nearing approval for a plan to construct North
America’s first freshwater offshore wind
development on Lake Erie.
Technical
Advances and Environmental Challenges
Like the rest of the clean
energy industry, offshore wind has seen technology growing by leaps and costs
falling. The most noticeable difference is the size of turbines, which have
gotten bigger and more efficient.
The blades now stretch
about the length of a football field, and towers reach 400 feet. The
six-megawatt turbines used at Block Island are now being upgraded to
13-megawatt turbines for new projects. Operating at full power, a single
13-megawatt turbine could supply a whole household’s daily electricity needs in seven seconds, Rogers calculated.
These advances mean that
fewer structures need to be constructed in the ocean to generate the same
amount of power and they can be farther apart. A decade ago, the thinking was
that turbines need to be spaced about 0.6 nautical miles apart. Now the
industry says it can make do at 1 nautical mile — which creates a bigger
pathway for fishing boats, search and rescue, and other marine vessels.
How the proliferation of
wind development along the Atlantic coast will affect wildlife — particularly
marine mammals, like endangered North Atlantic right whales, and
birds — is still being studied and best practices developed.
“We don’t really know to
what degree the species that we have off the coast of the United States will experience
these effects,” she says. “It could be very minimal, but we still want to
know.”
The threats to marine
mammals are greatest during construction, and some animals could be bothered by
noise from the turbines after they’re operational, but experts say there are
existing and emerging technologies that could help to avoid or minimize the
impact.
“We believe that offshore
wind can absolutely be developed in an environmentally responsible manner,”
says Francine Kershaw, staff scientist at NRDC. “But it requires a
collaborative effort between developers, agencies and other stakeholders.”
Political
Landscape
As 2020 came to a close,
the wind industry scored wins with the end-of-the-year COVID relief and
government spending bill, including a five-year extension for offshore wind tax
credits. And with the Biden-Harris administration soon taking up the reins, the
political landscape for offshore wind development looks more certain.
“We’ll shortly leave
behind an administration that has been at best ambiguous and at worst downright
hostile to clean energy and maybe especially offshore wind,” says Rogers. “And
there’s no question that the incoming [Biden] administration will be a whole
new ballgame when it comes to the importance of addressing climate change,
cleaning up the power sector and embracing clean energy.”
As the administration
looks to tackle climate change and shore up an economy struggling with the
pandemic, offshore wind could boost both, its backers say. The offshore wind industry
could add 83,000 the U.S. economy in the next 10 years, according to the
American Clean Power Association.
“Continued efforts by the
states to build out offshore wind supply chains, port infrastructure and local
workforces will be key as the industry develops,” says Laura Morton, senior
director of policy and regulatory affairs for the group.
The industry and environmental
organizations have their own wishlists from the administration, but University
of Delaware’s Firestone says one helpful immediate change would be a budget
increase for BOEM.
“It needs to staff up
greatly to handle the 30 gigawatts of presently planned offshore wind,” he
says. “They need a lot more people in order to review those plans if the
projects are to be built in a timely fashion.”
Rogers is optimistic that
the new administration, and the years of work that have come before, could
result in a breakout year for the industry.
“I think it could be an
incredible year for offshore wind,” says Rogers. “And given the scale of the
challenges we face — from an energy and an economic perspective — I think we
really need it to be an
incredible year for offshore wind.”