The Biden administration greenlit the first large-scale offshore wind project this month in a move that could help jumpstart an industry that thus far has been stagnant in the United States.
It’s a small first step toward meeting a goal President Joe Biden set in March for the U.S. to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, but the country has a long way to go. Currently, the U.S. only has two small-scale pilot offshore wind projects in operation, one off the coast of Rhode Island and the other off the coast of Virginia, totaling about 42 megawatts of power.
Nonetheless, renewable energy advocates and energy analysts say the approval of the first large-scale project is a significant milestone for the offshore wind industry.
“It will facilitate the first wave of significant projects,” said Laura Morton, the senior director of offshore policy and regulatory affairs for the American Clean Power Association.
“It will provide certainty for the U.S. offshore wind industry and strengthen the workforce” not only along the Atlantic Coast but all the way down to the Gulf Coast, and it would “revolutionize domestic supply chains,” she added.
That is in part because it frees up federal officials to turn to other offshore wind projects in the queue waiting for approval, armed with a blueprint of how to assess them. In addition, along with the strong market signal provided by Biden’s new goal, the approval could help the U.S. attract investment that was previously going to already-burgeoning offshore markets such as Europe.
The Interior and Commerce departments approved the Vineyard Wind project May 11, allowing the construction of up to 84 turbines off the shore of Massachusetts. The 800-megawatt project, which the company says will begin delivering electricity to Massachusetts in 2023, will power more than 400,000 homes and businesses and create 3,600 jobs.
“Today’s record of decision is not about the start of a single project, but the launch of a new industry,” Vineyard Wind CEO Lars Pedersen said in a statement following the Biden administration’s announcement.
The project, owned by Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, has been under federal government review for more than three years. It hit several hurdles amid opposition from the commercial fishing industry, and some renewable energy advocates accused the Trump administration of deliberately delaying the project.
Former President Donald Trump strongly criticized wind energy during his time in office.
In a statement following the project’s approval by Biden’s team, he called wind an “incredibly expensive form of energy that kills birds, affects the sea, ruins the landscape, and creates disasters for navigation.” Trump added that Martha’s Vineyard “will never be the same.”
Gregory Wetstone, the president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, said that the Biden administration is taking a significantly different approach.
“What we saw in the prior administration was a move to stall all offshore wind development. Nothing moved forward. Everything was placed under indefinite study, and no decisions were made,” Wetstone said. “This administration looked at the long record that’s already been built and is making decisions and moving forward rapidly.
The Biden administration is already turning to other offshore wind projects.
Five other projects are under review by the federal agencies, Morton said. When the administration announced its offshore wind deployment goal, the White House said it intends to begin environmental reviews for up to 10 projects later this year.
The Biden administration is also opening up new areas for offshore wind leasing, with plans to hold a sale in the New York Bight, an area of shallow water between Long Island and the New Jersey coast, by early next year.
Nonetheless, while Vineyard Wind’s approval clears the queue for these projects, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that they will be approved quickly.
“The speed of the scale-up we’re going to see towards the second half of the decade will really depend on how much” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management “can expedite that whole process from start to finish,” said Oliver Metcalfe, a wind energy associate with BloombergNEF, of the permitting process.
In addition, after approval, large-scale offshore wind projects take a few years to build and begin operation. For example, Vineyard Wind won’t begin delivering power until at least two years after its approval.
Other potential hurdles to offshore wind projects include local opposition to projects and the need to build out sufficient electric transmission to carry the power from offshore turbines to homes and businesses onshore.
Still, renewable energy advocates and energy analysts expect significant offshore wind development in the U.S. in the second half of this decade.
Morton from the American Clean Power Association said the projects that have been proposed, are under review, or are included in state procurement targets could lead to 32 gigawatts of offshore wind deployment by 2035.
BloombergNEF expects the U.S. to build 23 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, shy of Biden’s goal but a significant increase in the country’s capacity that would make it the third-largest offshore wind market in the world.
One of the biggest factors driving this growth is the states, especially in the Northeast, soliciting massive amounts of offshore wind power to help them meet their aggressive climate targets.
“It’s ambition on a state level that’s going to bring through capacity, and that’s going to get projects in the water,” Metcalfe said. Those state offshore wind procurements are driven not only by their emissions targets but also a desire to capture the economic benefits, including jobs, that could come with a build-out of the industry, he added.
Wetstone of the renewable energy group said there is “every reason to anticipate tens of billions of dollars in investment in offshore wind” in the U.S., helping to create “tens of thousands of jobs.”
The economic opportunities in offshore wind are attracting more than just state governments.
The offshore oil and gas industry has shown a “huge level of interest” in the offshore wind space up and down the supply chain, said Erik Milito, the president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents the offshore oil and gas and wind industries.
It isn’t just oil and gas producers getting involved, either, he added, saying everything (from marine construction companies to offshore service vessel companies to seismic companies) is expanding into offshore wind.
“Because in the end, they’re all focused on constructing energy projects,” Milito said. “They have the expertise, based upon what they’re doing in offshore oil and gas, to easily step in and assist and help in the build-out of offshore wind.”
