THE IMMENSE POTENTIAL OF U.S. OFFSHORE WIND

Study boosts notion of offshore wind production; Abell Foundation says turbine operation could generate jobs, too
Timothy B. Wheeler, February 9, 2010 (Baltimore Sun)

SUMMARY
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously ridiculed the nations of the European Union as “old Europe” but they are way ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to New Energy.

While U.S. offshore wind developers are still trapped in regulatory hell, wind power builders in Europe (and, to a lesser extent, in China) have begun installing turbines in coastal waters and turning into electricity the winds over the ocean that are, as anybody who has been to the beach or on the sea can attest, stronger and steadier than those onshore.

Although lagging behind, U.S. offshore wind builders are studying their assets. As Maryland’s Offshore Wind Power Potential makes clear by its detailed examination of one state's calculated capacity, those untapped assets are immense.

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This preliminary assessment of the social, ecological, and economic feasibility of developing Maryland’s offshore wind power concluded that just the state’s near-coast winds – and not even including the winds in the Chesapeake Bay – could supply two-thirds of its electricity, working only with turbine technology already in use.

Three-fourths of Maryland’s presently harvestable near-shore wind is enough to supply the 3,900 megawatts of wind energy the state’s Renewable Electricity Standard allows (18%) toward meeting its total 2022 (22.5%) requirement for electricity from New Energy sources.

With deeper water offshore wind technologies now being tested, the state’s ocean wind could supply almost twice the electricity (179%) it consumes, which means it could sell to other states enough wind-generated electricity to pay for four-fifths of what it uses.

Most relevantly to today’s circumstances, developing Maryland’s offshore wind assets is likely to boost the state’s economy with employment and small business revenues coming from construction, operations and maintenance, supply chain, and turbine manufacturing.

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COMMENTARY
Maryland is in the process of developing onshore wind but does not have adequate land-based resources to meaningfully impact its RES or its electricity demand.

Landmark studies in 2007 conclusively demonstrated that offshore wind power holds enormous promise for the entire Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern region.

Offshore turbines have been operational in Europe for 15 years.

The first U.S. offshore wind proposal was made in 2001 but the Cape Wind project intended for Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound has still to be approved.

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There are now proposals for Atlantic, Gulf, and Great Lakes regions offshore projects.

There are binding contracts for offshore wind in Delaware and Rhode Island, a planned purchase by Maryland for a part of the Delaware project’s output, and 3 proposed New Jersey developments.

New York just released a Request For Proposals (RFP) for a utility-scale offshore wind project in the Great Lakes.

North Carolina has announced a small test project of up to 3 turbines in Pamlico Sound.

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On the Atlantic coast, Maine, Virginia, and Georgia have also shown interest.

Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin (and Ontario in Canada) are moving forward in the Great Lakes region.

Texas is preparing to go into the Gulf of Mexico.

There are 2,000+ megawatts of offshore wind power in various stages of development.

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The Department of the Interior is finalizing a comprehensive ocean energy development plan.

While this study was being prepared, the Maryland Energy Administration began working with offshore wind developers and has 5 partial proposals. It is also working with the state’s Department of Natural Resources and other federal and local regulatory agencies to streamline the environmental, shipping lane and commercial fishing industry approvals process.

The report deals extensively with the parameters and limtations imposed on development by commercial considerations like shipping and fishing, as well as by aesthetic and environmental considerations. It recommends turbines be at least 9 miles offshore to protect Ocean City tourism and the beach at Assateague National Seashore. Planned developments go further, planning turbines for 12 miles out.

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The report sees the potential for ~2,900 wind turbines, using proven offshore wind technology in the relatively shallow continental shelf Atlantic waters 28-to-43 miles off the Maryland coast. When more advanced, deeper water turbine technology is proven, ~12,000 turbines using fixed lattice tower and floating foundations, could eventually be deployed farther out.

Onshore turbines have faced siting challenges due to aesthetic objections and potential harm to migrating bats and birds and wildlife habitat. Offshore wind projects have already met similar challenges but preliminary investigations indicate they will have little harmful impact on ocean life habitat.

Both onshore and offshore wind will also require new transmission lines and the building of them meets the same challenges. But offshore wind, because it is largely adjacent to coastal population centers where electricity demand is highest, requires less new transmission.

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The Maryland Department of Natural Resources plans a public feedback process in the spring on the controversies and the facts pertaining to offshore wind development.

The currently available offshore technologies utilize monopile turbines with their towers sunk into the seabed.

Jacket turbine foundations, used only at present in pilot projects, have towers fixed atop lattice frameworks that are below the level of the sea and sunk into the seabed.

Floating foundation technologies, now only in the experimental stage, are like gigantic moored ocean buoys with turbines riding atop them.

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While offshore wind development in Maryland promises new businesses, jobs and revenues, traditional fossil fuel electricity delivered from out-of-state power plants has offered the state none of these benefits.

The offshore wind power purchase agreement (PPA) struck in neighboring Delaware between developer Bluewater Wind and Delaware-Maryland-Virginia utility Delmarva Power demonstrates that utility-scale offshore wind projects are likely to be price competitive with new fossil fuel plants when a cost is imposed on the greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) from Old Energy-generated electricity.

The Maryland study area was confined within the state’s northern and southern land borders and east in the ocean. It was divided into 4 segments, defined by turbine foundation technology depth ranges:
(1) Monopiles are used at up to 35 meter depths;
(2) Jacket foundations are used in 35-to-50 meter depths;
(3) Advanced Jacket foundations are used in 50-to-100 meter depths;
(4) Floating foundations are workable in 100-to-1000 meter depths; and
(5) no offshore technologies have been demonstrated beyond 1000 meter depths.

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By linking capacity development to the advancement of the technology, the report was able to estimate the asset potential’s expected growth over time because (1) Monopiles have 15+ years of proven reliability; (2) Jacket foundations have had limited deployment in the last 1-to-2 years; and (3) Floating foundation prototypes are presently getting isolated trials.

Available area for development is the delimited portion of the study area left after excluding for other ocean uses not compatible with offshore wind development (nautical, navigational, ecological, socio-economic).

Nautical: Artificial reefs, dump sites identified on maps.

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Navigational: There are no official shipping lanes but there is significant ship traffic in and out of the Delaware Bay and up and down the Atlantic seaboard.
Ecological: Seabirds threatened by collisions and habitat imposition identified by an expert ornithologist as within 1 mile of shore, the Atlantic flyway for migratory bird species.

A visual exclusion zone in an 8-mile radius around (1) Ocean City, a tourist destination, and (2) Assateague Island, a national seashore: Coastal residents/beachgoers have “visual disamenity” within 9 miles of shore.

Available area: 9,526 km at up to 1000 meter depths, before complications pertaining to shipping that excluded another 3,300 km, leaving 6,226 km available for wind turbine installations.

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Further considerations in calculating the state’s total offshore wind potential: (a) wind speed data; (b) offshore turbine capacities; and (c) turbine spacing, determining the total number of turbines practical.

Wind speed was determined according to readings at the NOAA National Data Buoy Center from 12 nautical miles off the southern coast of Delaware.

Turbine capacity was determined using a Repower 5M, 5-megawatt turbine 90 meters tall.

Ideal spacing was determined to be an industry standard factor of five by ten: 5 turbine rotor diameters crosswind by 10 rotor diameters downwind. The Repower 5M has a rotor diameter of 126 meters. In the determined available area, this spacing allows for 11,999 turbines.

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Relatively simple calculations from Maryland’s total annual electric load conclude that the nearly 3,000 turbines that could be installed within the 35 meter depth zone could supply 67% of Maryland’s electricity need. Going to a 50 meter depth, offshore wind could supply 133% of Maryland’s need. Going all the way to the 1000 meter depth, offshore wind power could generate over 179,000 gigwatt-hours per year.

The study demonstrates Maryland’s capacity is there and development is feasible. It is an opportunity for Maryland to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its electricity generation and improve its air quality without sacrificing capacity.

The Delamarva Power Purchase Agreement demonstrates wind will be only moderately more expensive than fossil fuel electricity but a Rhode Island deal suggests that the PPA price could be low. Economic factors need further study, especially to understand what volume of installed capacity would drive economies of scale to reduced pricing.

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Building out Maryland’s offshore wind potential is likely to significantly benefit the state’s economy through jobs and revenues from construction, operations and maintenance, supply chain development, and/or turbine manufacturing. Fossil-generated electricity purchased on the market and delivered from out-of-state power plants does nothing for New Energy goals or the state’s economy.

The Maryland offshore wind resources report was prepared by the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment at the University of Delaware and sponsored by the Abell Foundation.

Very sensible yet visionary people.

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QUOTES
- Jeremy Firestone, lead author/associate professor, University of Delaware: "There is, if Maryland so chooses, a significant opportunity to develop a very robust offshore wind energy economy and create a new economic and job base in the state…You may only get a turbine factory in one state, but there's a very large supply chain involved and many components…[Y]ou're going to kill some birds and, yes, there are probably some places you don't want to put wind turbines…But as a general rule, almost anything else is going to cause more impacts than wind power."

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- From the report: “…Renewable energy has become an increasingly attractive alternative…given concerns over climate change, difficulty in siting nuclear power plants, health concerns associated with fossil fuel generation, a desire to tap domestic energy resources, and the recognition that green energy development is likely to attract and sustain green jobs. Many states, including Maryland, explicitly encourage renewable energy generation through renewable portfolio standards, which require utilities to acquire a certain percentage of their electric supply from renewable energy sources…[I]n recent years wind power has comprised the second largest fraction of newly installed power, behind natural gas. Wind power has emerged as the renewable energy source of choice in many parts of the country because it is the only proven means to generate utility-scale carbon-free energy in a cost-competitive manner. To date, all of the U.S. wind energy power has been land-based…While Maryland will soon be generating land-based wind power, its land-based wind resources are limited…For wind power to become a significant fraction of Maryland’s electricity supply, it will either need to import land-based wind power from other states and to rely on transmission lines, or look to the sea…”

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- From the report: “…Maryland’s offshore wind power potential appears to be very large, on a scale comparable to the entire state’s need for electricity. Development of this resource appears to be the easiest and most cost-effective way to meet Maryland’s renewable portfolio standard with instate generation, serve increasing electric load with new generation needed, improve on environmental goals of reducing CO2 and improving air quality, and modernize and diversify its economy.”