Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced on Monday, February 7, 2011, new funding up to $50.5 million over five years for projects that support offshore wind energy deployment, as well as development of several high priority wind energy areas in the mid-Atlantic.
"The mid-Atlantic wind energy areas are a key part of our 'Smart from the Start' program for expediting appropriate commercial-scale wind energy development in America's waters," Secretary Salazar said in a written statement. "Through the Strategic Work Plan, the United States is synchronizing new research and development initiatives with more efficient, forward-thinking planning so that we can help quickly stand up an American offshore wind industry. This initiative will spur the type of innovation that will help us create new jobs, build a clean energy future, and compete and win in the technologies of the 21st century."
New Wind Power Funding
The “National Offshore Wind Strategy: Creating an Offshore Wind Industry in the United States" initiative made public yesterday is the first-ever interagency plan to develop offshore wind energy. Under the initiative, the Department of Energy is pursuing 10 gigawatts of offshore wind generating capacity by 2020 and 54 gigawatts by 2030. That is enough electricity to power 2.8 million and 15.2 million average American homes, respectively.
According to the announcement, the $50.5 million over 5 years will be divided into three key challenges:
The up to $25 million over five years for “Technology Development” will support the development of innovative wind turbine design tools and hardware to provide for a cost-competitive offshore wind industry in the United States.
An effort to remove“Market Barriers ”that are limiting the deployment of offshore wind will receive up to $18 million over three years. That money will support economic studies and environmental research.
Finally, up to $7.5 million over three years will fund the “Next-Generation Drive train” designs for wind turbines, considered a core technology for cost-effective offshore wind power.
Off-Shore Locations
Secretary of the Interior Salazar identified four wind energy areas offshore the mid-Atlantic. The areas are on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia. In March, Interior also expects to identify wind energy areas off the North Atlantic states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. According to the Interior Department, one-fifth of the offshore wind energy potential of the East Coast is located off the New England coast.
On October 6, 2010, the Department of the Interior signed a 28-year agreement with Cape Wind Associates, LLC to lease the company 25 square miles on the Outer Continental Shelf in the Nantucket Sound off of Massachusetts. That project is to include 130 wind turbines and is expected to produce an average of 182 megawatts, enough energy to power more than 200,000 homes in Massachusetts, according to the government.
The Interior Department says the Cape Wind project site is slated for about five miles from the shoreline, 13 miles from Nantucket Island and nine miles from Martha's Vineyard.
Rhode Island is working on its own program of eight turbines off Block Island, and Delaware has plans for a 150-turbine wind farm 12.5 miles off the coast.
Under the National Offshore Wind Strategy announced yesterday, the long-term development of off-shore wind power in federal and state areas may also include along Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts as well as in Great Lakes and Hawaiian waters.
U.S Wind Power Slipping
Total U.S. wind capacity now stands at 40,180 MW, an increase in capacity of 15 percent over the start of 2010, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported last month. For the first time, U.S. capacity fell second to China's; China now has 41,800 MW in operation, an increase of 62 percent in capacity over a year ago, according to a January 13, 2011 report from the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association.
According to AWEA, Texas has been the leading wind power state for several years running and achieved a major milestone by surging past the 10,000-megawatt mark for total installations - a quarter of all wind capacity in the U.S. - with the addition of 680 MW in 2010.
The state has plans for a wind farm seven miles off the coast of Galveston.
