May 11, 2021
Over the last two decades, the US has seen incredible growth in renewable energy: Roughly a 12,000% increase in the installed capacity of solar panels and 4,800% for onshore wind turbines. But offshore wind has always lagged behind, even as China and European countries forged ahead with booming offshore wind industries. As of 2020, the US was home to just 0.1% of global offshore wind, split between two tiny farms off the coasts of Virginia and Rhode Island, according to data from the Global Wind Energy Council, a trade group.
That is poised to change in the next few years, now that the Biden administration has signed off on the country’s first major offshore wind farm, to be situated about 12 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. On May 11, the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a final approval for Vineyard Wind, an 800-megawatt, $2.8 billion joint venture between the US utility Avangrid, a subsidiary of Spanish
Governors Wind Energy Coalition
Biden wants to move energy offshore, but choppy seas are ahead Source: By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post • Posted: Sunday, May 9, 2021
To fight climate change, the administration supports a huge expansion in offshore wind farms by 2030
A liftboat at the Dorchester Shipyard in New Jersey on Friday. The ships help do drilling and cabling for offshore wind farms. (Hannah Yoon for The Washington Post)
DORCHESTER, N.J. In his three decades servicing oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, boat captain Keith Piper rode out all manner of storms and gales. Still, he had never faced the elements that tested him last winter at a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Subzero temperatures. Snow. A nor’easter blowing 70 miles per hour. Coffee
Up and down the East Coast, developers and government agencies are preparing for the massively complex and costly challenge of placing thousands of wind
Biden wants to move energy offshore, but choppy seas are ahead
By Joshua Partlow The Washington Post,Updated May 9, 2021, 4:13 a.m.
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Wind turbines at the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm, owned by NextEra Energy Inc., in Whitewater, California, on Feb. 17, 2021.Bing Guan/Bloomberg
DORCHESTER, N.J. - In his three decades servicing oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, boat captain Keith Piper rode out all manner of storms and gales. Still, he had never faced the elements that tested him last winter at a wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island. Subzero temperatures. Snow. A norâeaster blowing 70 miles per hour. Coffee sloshing in the pot and his 500-ton liftboat - propped above the waves on four hydraulic legs - vibrating from the force of the wind.
“Vietnam has a great potential and optimal conditions to develop offshore wind,” said Nipper.
Sebastian Hald Buhl, formerly based in Taiwan, is Orsted’s new country manager in Vietnam.
Vietnam is widely viewed as one of the most promising new offshore wind markets thanks to its strong wind resources and urgent need for clean power to replace fossil fuel sources.
The country has already seen the entry of Orsted’s fellow Danish group Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which in 2020 signed an outline agreement with regional partners over a 3.5GW offshore wind project there.
The Danish Energy Agency and World Bank in a report late last year estimated that Vietnam has a 160GW offshore wind potential, and said the nation should aim to have 10GW in the water by 2030.