Can Political Headwinds Against U.S. Offshore Wind Power Help Policy Change Course?
This post is part of a series related to the March 12 Conference on Public Lands and Energy Transitions that was hosted by the George Washington University Law School's Environment and Energy Law Program.
Offshore wind holds huge promise as a renewable electricity source. Using existing turbine technologies, the U.S. potential is 2,058,000 megawatts (MW), enough to generate double the electricity demand of the entire United States in 2015. About 80 percent of that electricity demand is along the coasts, so getting the power to the public could prove easier than transmitting it from wind-rich midwestern states. Utilities from eight states up and down the East Coast from Maine to Virginia have committed to procuring 22,500 MW of offshore wind so far, and wind power appeared poised to take off when the Department of the Interior awarded 11 commercial offshore leases in 2016.
But now, almost four years later, the United States has yet to break ground on a single offshore wind project in federal waters. Yes, one mini-project of 30 megawatts (five turbines) went online in state waters off Block Island, Rhode Island, in December 2016. And yes, Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind …
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