Louisiana trailblazes with the US's first state-water offshore wind farms - Electrek
Louisiana trailblazes with the US's first state-water offshore wind farms
Louisiana is making US history by launching its first two offshore wind farms, Cajun Wind and Diamond Offshore Wind, in state waters.
Vestas, through its North American arm Steelhead Americas, has announced Cajun Wind, marking a significant milestone as the state’s first wind operating agreement and a first in US state waters.
Governor John Bel Edwards (D-LA) and Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources have also approved another pioneering project with Mitsubishi-owned Diamond Offshore Wind, reflecting the oil-and-gas-producing state’s evolving leadership in clean energy production.
“For generations, the state of Louisiana has been a leader in energy production, and offshore wind energy is the next chapter in that great history as we expand our options for clean energy production and open new avenues for the development of our state economy,” said Edwards.
The Cajun Wind project spans 59,653 acres off Cameron Parish. Concurrently, Diamond Offshore Wind encompasses a 6,162-acre site near Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. The projects will leverage Louisiana’s existing offshore infrastructure and industry expertise, boosting the local economy and job market – a big selling point for state legislators. It also has an existing coastal port and supply chain infrastructure. It’s too soon for details of the wind farms’ power potential and size, but I’ll report back when we find out more.
The state of Louisiana has set a goal to install 5 GW of offshore wind by 2035.
Read more: The first US offshore wind auction in the Gulf of Mexico was a dud
Photo: Vestas
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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.