It’s About Time: America’s First Offshore Wind Farm is Under Construction

As of July, America’s first offshore wind farm is under construction. The Block Island Wind Farm, located off the coast of Rhode Island, will generate enough electricity to completely replace the approximately million gallons of diesel that the island currently relies on for its electricity needs each year. According to the project’s developer, Deepwater Wind, the project will create 300 local jobs and will reduce island electricity bills by 40 percent.

The Block Island Wind Farm’s path to construction has been fairly long and complex. By the time the Block Island Wind Farm received final permitting approval, it had been reviewed by 11 state and federal regulatory agencies, and required a Rhode Island Supreme Court decision along the way. The project’s progress is especially heartening following the recent struggles of the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts.

Although its development can be challenging, offshore wind is a critical piece of the puzzle for reducing our reliance on dirty fossil fuel energy, and staving off the worst impacts of global warming. The U.S. Department of Energy found that even under conservative assumptions about transmission, fossil fuel supply, and supply chain availability, the United States could build 54 gigawatts of offshore wind power capacity by 2030, enough to avert 125 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2030, equivalent to the annual emissions of more than 30 coal plants. In total, America has enough offshore wind technical potential to more than power the whole country.[pdf] Offshore wind energy is also important because of the close proximity of offshore wind resources to major coastal cities, which are large sources of electricity demand, a point noted in our recent report Cool Solutions, which highlighted offshore wind as an important solution for reducing global warming emissions in Massachusetts.

Despite our delay in building offshore wind, American onshore wind energy is booming. In 2014, about a quarter of all new U.S. electric capacity came from wind.[pdf] Iowa and South Dakota are generating more than a quarter of their electricity with wind. And the U.S. has nearly 65 GW of wind energy total, second in the world behind China.[pdf] But when it comes to offshore wind, the U.S. is falling behind. There are already nearly 9 GW of operational offshore wind farms globally [pdf], and in just the first six months of 2015 Europe added 584 new offshore wind turbines with more than 2 GW of capacity.[pdf]

Building up American offshore wind capacity will require smart policy choices, along with sometimes complex coordination between state and federal agencies. But the construction of our first offshore wind farm is proof that it’s possible to get started now. It’s time to build on the momentum, and move quickly toward a future where the vast majority of American energy comes from clean, renewable sources like offshore wind.

Image: Dept. of Energy, Repower 5 Megawatt Offshore Wind Turbines And Energy Substation, Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm, Germany.