LIVE NOW! Wind Power Action Plan - Winds of change? - EURACTIV
LIVE NOW! Wind Power Action Plan - Winds of change? - EURACTIV.com
Euractiv.com 15-11-2023 (updated: 15-11-2023 ) Euractiv is part of the Trust Project >>> Print Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram During her State of the Union address, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the crucial role of the wind industry in delivering the EU Green Deal but also remarked that the industry is facing a unique set of challenges. To address them, on 24 October the European Commission announced its new Wind Power Action Plan, aimed at maintaining a healthy and competitive wind energy supply chain, with a clear and secure pipeline of projects, attracting the necessary financing and competing on a level playing field globally. The Plan sets out immediate actions to be taken together by the Commission, the Member States and industry, by focusing on six main areas: acceleration of deployment through increased predictability and faster permitting, improved auction design, access to finance, a fair and competitive international environment, skills and industry engagement, and Member States commitments. Join this Euractiv Hybrid Conference to discuss the Commission’s newly announced Wind Power Action Plan. What will be its role in making the wind industry a ‘European success story’, as President von der Leyen called it in her State of the Union speech? And how is it going to address the unique challenges that the wind industry is facing?
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.