Offshore Wind One Step Closer to Reality in the Mid-Atlantic

Kit Kennedy, NRDC
February 02, 2012 | 7 Comments

Today the Obama administration moved forward with plans to develop the enormous offshore wind energy resources along the Mid-Atlantic coast, using a "Smart for the Start" approach designed to expedite the siting process while incorporating strong environmental protections.

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior Department, (DOI), and the head of DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, joined Governor O’Malley of Maryland in Baltimore to announce the latest developments.

The administration released plans for developing waters off New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. Offshore wind power could create tens of thousands of jobs and generate power for millions of homes in the region.

Specifically, the Department of Interior approved “wind energy areas” off the coasts of these states where projects can move through the regulatory approval process more quickly, as well as model lease language and environmental review documents for the initial site assessment process, which is the first step in developing an offshore wind project.

The smart-from-the-start approach means taking into account the need to protect ocean ecosystems, wildlife and existing human uses in order to site things where they make the most sense. This is the kind of progress anticipated to increase as the administration implements the National Ocean Policy created by the President in 2010.

Currently, the process for getting offshore wind power off the ground in this country takes far too long. The projected timeline for approval of an offshore wind project is currently 7-9 years, far longer than the typical siting process for a fossil-fuel fired power plant (generally 2 -3 years). It’s a crying shame that that it has taken so long to get clean, homegrown offshore wind turbines up and running while fossil-fuel power plants, with their plethora of health and environmental impacts, can be green-lighted in a fraction of the time.

And it’s one of several reasons why the United States is lagging behind the rest of the world in developing its offshore wind resources. In Europe, some 53 offshore wind projects, totally almost 3,800 MW of capacity, are producing clean renewable energy off the coasts of 10 European countries, with nine more major offshore wind projects under construction. In China, the country’s first offshore wind project has been built, with more underway.

In stark contrast, the United States has approved a grand total of one offshore wind project, and has zero in operation. Cape Wind — the nation’s first-approved project, located in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound — illustrates this problem clearly. The Cape Wind approval process took a decade, and project’s construction has still not begun, due to financing challenges and litigation launched by opponents of the projects. NRDC continues to be a strong supporter of the Cape Wind project, and has joined the legal battles as a “friend of the court” to support DOI and Cape Wind, together with our partners at the Conservation Law Foundation and Mass Audubon. We need to speed up the timeline for similar projects in the future if we want to get serious about advancing this promising source of renewable technology in America.

Today’s announcement gives us hope that the United States will now be able to develop our enormous offshore wind resources more quickly — and deliver the enormous economic, environmental and public health benefits that come with them. Already, a number of projects appear poised to move forward in the near future, including Deepwater Wind’s project in Rhode Island state waters, and Fishermen Energy’s project off Atlantic City in New Jersey. We need to scale up well-sited offshore wind projects throughout the East Coast in a sustainable way as soon as possible.

We’ll be carefully reviewing the details of DOI’s environmental review and model lease documents announced today to ensure that appropriate environmental protections and mitigation measures have been incorporated. NRDC will continue to use every opportunity to advocate for smart siting of offshore wind projects.

This article was originally published on NRDC Switchboard and was republished with permission.

7 Comments

ANONYMOUS
February 13, 2012

GeraldR,

Yes, typical offshore wind conditions are somewhat better than on-shore. But an off-shore turbine installation costs about 50% more than on-shore. And since turbine capital costs are the main driver in LCOE, on-shore currently still makes more sense. The scale of on-shore turbine designs is also getting larger. So that advantage in off-shore turbines is going away.

As for resource location, think about it this way: It's much more practical to move the large industrial users of electricity to remote, low-cost, wind-rich areas like Wyoming, north Texas, or south Dakota, than it is to install lots of off-shore wind turbines in places like Cape Cod or Long Island.

Chris Kapsambelis
February 9, 2012

At this stage of development wind energy is an impotent component in our power grids. The unpredictable nature of wind energy must be supplemented with fossil fuel power stations. It has been found that this practice reduces efficiency to the point where no fuel is saved and no carbon emissions are reduced.

In view of these findings, wind energy projects are a redundant and unnecessary add-on to the power grid. The missing component is utility scale energy storage. Until someone comes up with a viable solution that can convert wind energy into a potent power source connected to the grid, wind energy is an unnecessary burden to the national economy.

Trevor Bond
February 4, 2012

I read a scientific american article a year or two ago that suggested that a hoop could be attached the the turbines that has long chains hanging off it to grow oysters. With oysters going for $70 per half bushel, it seems like there is money to be made there. Oysters could be collected when maintenance needs to be done on the turbines, so there shouldn't be too much extra cost. Then again I know very little about the oyster industry, but this seems like a pretty good way to help cover costs.

ANONYMOUS
February 3, 2012

It's easier than ever to see where such sites should be placed, using GIS tools - http://www.marinecadastre.gov/MMC%20Pages/tools.aspx

Gerry Wootton
February 3, 2012

Simple question: do you wanna.

Only 4 states do not have advisories for consumption of fish due to mercury and other heavy metals; 16 have blanket advisories. More than half of the problem can be traced to one source. Note to 'environmentalists' - you can't say you don't inhale.

@ anonymous - the economics of offshore wind is a balance of quality of resource versus cost. At the end of the day its a matter of (total energy produced)/(total cost of production). Generally, off-shore resources are better than onshore. Access to market is another consideration: Wyoming might be a very fine place but it's rather far from Boston and the substantial number of independent system operators and unregulated territories inbetween presents a logistic and commercial nightmare. Potential interoperability between Wyoming's unorganized power district and ISO New England is nil.
When you view the North American power system as a whole, it is anything but unified or united - supergrid could be 100 years away.

Anumakonda Jagadeesh
February 3, 2012

First it was on shore wind farms in US and in the coming years it will be more off shore with large wind turbines.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com

ANONYMOUS
February 3, 2012

Don't agree that offshore wind will be of much benefit nearterm. Commercial wind is all about LCOE, and offshore wind is still far more costly than onshore installations.

It would be more productive to focus efforts on increasing the size and efficiency of onshore turbines. The US midwest (Wyoming, Texas, South Dakota, Colorado) is blessed with massive amounts of acreage having prime wind conditions. While it wouldn't be as "sexy" as pushing offshore wind, it would be far more cost effective to focus on developing these inland regions.

The writer laments the fact that getting government approvals for building an offshore wind farm in the US is next-to-impossible. But then applauds the very same bureaucrats that created the problem for proposing even more regulations to try to solve it.

Unfortunately, offshore wind farms in the US will continue to face regulatory roadblocks for years to come. It is a political situation where one environmental group (renewable energy proponents) is pitted against another group (like the California Coastal Commission).

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Kit Kennedy

I first joined NRDC in 1988 after working for a federal judge for two years. In my early years, I had the chance to work on a wide range of great cross-cutting issues at NRDC, ranging from working to improve New York City’s sewage system...