US Offshore Wind Farms Are Being Strangled With Red Tape

This article is republished from The Conversation nether a Creative Commons license.

America’s archetypal large-scale offshore upwind farms began sending power to the Northeast successful aboriginal 2024, but a question of upwind workplace task cancellations and rising costs person near galore radical with doubts astir the industry’s aboriginal successful the US.

Several large hitters, including Ørsted, Equinor, BP, and Avangrid, person canceled contracts oregon sought to renegotiate them successful caller months. Pulling retired meant the companies faced cancellation penalties ranging from $16 million to respective 100 cardinal dollars per project. It besides resulted successful Siemens Energy, the world’s largest shaper of offshore upwind turbines, anticipating fiscal losses successful 2024 of astir $2.2 billion.

Altogether, projects that had been canceled by the extremity of 2023 were expected to full more than 12 gigawatts of power, representing much than fractional of the capableness successful the task pipeline.

So, what happened, and tin the US offshore upwind manufacture recover?

I pb the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Wind-Energy Science, Technology, and Research (WindSTAR) and Center for Energy Innovation, and travel the manufacture closely. The offshore upwind industry’s troubles are complicated, but it’s acold from dormant successful the US, and immoderate argumentation changes whitethorn assistance it find firmer footing.

A Cascade of Approval Challenges

Getting offshore upwind projects permitted and approved successful the US takes years and is fraught with uncertainty for developers, much truthful than successful Europe oregon Asia.

Before a institution bids connected a US project, the developer indispensable program the procurement of the full upwind farm, including making reservations to acquisition components specified arsenic turbines and cables, operation equipment, and ships. The bid indispensable besides beryllium cost-competitive, truthful companies person a inclination to bid debased and not expect unexpected costs, which adds to fiscal uncertainty and risk.

The winning US bidder past purchases an costly water lease, costing successful the hundreds of millions of dollars. But it has nary close to physique a upwind task yet.

Before starting to build, the developer indispensable behaviour tract assessments to find what benignant of foundations are imaginable and place the standard of the project. The developer indispensable consummate an statement to merchantability the powerfulness it produces, identify a constituent of interconnection to the powerfulness grid, and past hole a operation and cognition plan, which is taxable to further environmental review. All of that takes astir 5 years, and it’s lone the beginning.

For a task to determination forward, developers whitethorn request to unafraid dozens of permits from local, tribal, state, regional, and national agencies. The national Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which has jurisdiction implicit leasing and absorption of the seabed, indispensable consult with agencies that person regulatory responsibilities implicit antithetic aspects successful the ocean, specified arsenic the equipped forces, Environmental Protection Agency, and National Marine Fisheries Service, arsenic good arsenic groups including commercialized and recreational fishing, Indigenous groups, shipping, harbor managers, and spot owners.