The Winds of Change

Colleen Walsh is a student in the Masters of Coastal and Ocean Policy program at UNC Wilmington. She received her bachelors in Environmental Studies and Coastal Management from Eckerd College in 2017. Colleen uses Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to visually convey environmental issues in hopes of bridging the educational gaps between scientists, policy makers, and citizens.

Block Island Offshore Wind Farm (Photo: Kayana Szmczak of The New York Times)

Proponents of offshore wind contend that it will curtail CO2 emissions and boost US energy independence without further strain on the limited available land. The northeast coast provides optimal wind speeds for energy generation and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has already identified several areas suitable for leasing to wind developers. There is broad support from advancing growth in renewable energy and improving its energy independence as evidenced in the mission statements of the Environmental Protection Agency and Office of Electricity. However, while the US continues to extract oil and natural gas as its main energy sources, offshore wind energy provides countries around the world with large inputs of reliable, renewable, and sustainable electricity. The United Nations projects the US and global population to continue to increase to 1.6 billion and 11.2 billion by 2100, respectively. Increasing population and associated energy demands will exacerbate current struggles with CO2 emissions, dependence on foreign oil, and land use. There are three major roadblocks that America faces in the development of offshore wind.

Wind energy areas suitable for development (Map from BOEM – 2016 National Offshore Wind Strategy) 

First, for decades, a lack of political and economic support has thwarted plans to update an aging and failing grid system. The updates to the grid necessary to properly and reliably disseminate offshore wind energy is a multi-billion dollar endeavor that is complex and disruptive to the public. America’s grids were developed for dispatchable energy, meaning it can be used on demand and adjust their output based on demand. Renewable energies are non-dispatchable and cannot be controlled by the operator, leaving a portion of consumers without power when wind speeds are low and potentially overloading the grid when wind speeds are too high. An overhaul of the disseminating power plants, transmitters, conductors, and capacitors would all need to be updated to properly handle fluctuations in energy.

Average offshore wind speeds at 100m above sea level, the central hight of the turbine rotor (Map from NREL- 2016 Offshore Wind Energy Resource Assessment)

Second, the size and structure of most current east coast ports aren’t capable of transporting wind turbine structures from land to ship and then out to sea. Although improvements are being made to accommodate for large ships in response to the expansion of the Panama Canal, special attention must be paid to the specifications needed to ship turbine monopoles and rotor blades through the ports. Large swaths of unimpeded landscape directly adjacent to the loading dock is needed to maneuver the components from truck to ship. The loading dock itself may have to be reconfigured to support the move.

Third, the Jones Act impedes foreign companies’ ability to install turbines at a reasonable cost. Ships transporting goods in US waters must satisfy the following four criteria:

1. The vessel owner must be a US citizen
2. The vessel is registered in the US & US-flagged
3. The vessel was built in the US
4. At least 75% of the crew are US citizens (Martino, 2017)

Congress originally created this Act to keep the US trade economy competitive. The US does not have a vessel capable of transporting and installing offshore wind turbines and bars capable foreign-flagged ships from loading domestic supplies from an American port. In the case of the Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first and only offshore wind farm, erected by Deepwater Wind, components were split across multiple vessels and deliver across the Atlantic Ocean to install them without ever making port in the US. This is a costly way around the Jones Act and will not be profitable for large-scale wind farms.

To overcome the above obstacles and make the potential for offshore wind a reality for US energy demands, I provide the following recommendations:

1. Public-private partnerships for grid and port updates
2. Incentives from the federal government for grid and port updates
3. Amendments and waivers to the Jones Act as it relates to offshore wind energy development