Federal Offshore Wind Strategy

By Jared Haines, New York Offshore Wind Alliance

Announced on March 29, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) released its Offshore Wind Strategy. This document offers a first-of-its-kind comprehensive summary of the Department’s efforts to meet President Biden’s offshore wind goals:  the deployment of 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030, followed by a 110 GW goal by 2050. According to the DOE, the first target alone would support 77,000 jobs, provide enough power for 10 million homes, and spur $12 billion per year in direct private investment.

The strategy categorizes the offshore wind plans into four pillars: NOW (Near-Term Offshore Wind), FORWARD (Floating Offshore Wind Accelerated Research and Development), CONNECT, and TRANSFORM. Each of these pillars detail different steps that would be taken to reach short- and long-term goals for offshore wind:

NOW

·      Reduce the cost of fixed-bottom offshore wind to $51/megawatt-hour (MWh) by 2030.

·      Support the development of a robust domestic offshore wind supply chain to install and operate more than 30 GW of fixed-bottom offshore wind.

·      Inform just, sustainable, and timely development of fixed-bottom offshore wind.

FORWARD

·      Achieve the Floating Offshore Wind Shot goal of reducing the cost of floating offshore wind energy in deep waters far from shore to $45/MWh by 2035.

·      Support the development of a domestic supply chain to facilitate deployment of 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035.

·      Inform just, sustainable, and timely development of floating offshore wind energy in deep waters.

CONNECT

·      Coordinate and inform planning for a transmission system that integrates offshore wind energy with the U.S. electricity grid.

·      Support technology innovation to increase offshore grid reliability, resilience, and interoperability.

·      Support expansion of reliable and resilient grid infrastructure.

TRANSFORM

·      Promote storage and wind-to-fuel technologies from offshore wind energy.

·      Support the development of offshore wind energy hubs.

The implementation of these four pillars will support offshore wind development in ways that are both economically and environmentally sustainable. These federal efforts will also bolster New York’s parallel efforts to mature the region’s offshore wind ecosystem of project development through the maturation of a local supply chain and manufacturing base, workforce training, port and harbor revitalization, and transmission development.