Offshore wind project takes key step forward | News | stateportpilot.com - State Port Pilot
Offshore wind project takes key step forward | News | stateportpilot.com
Pictured are, from left, Dave Bernstein with Geodynamics, Susan Munroe with TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay and Elizabeth Bennett with TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay with the R/V Shackleford. (Photo contributed)
The Carolina Long Bay Offshore Wind project took a major step forward this week in the effort to create a new source of clean energy off the Brunswick County coastline.
TotalEnergies Renewables USA embarked on its first expedition out of South Harbor to survey a potential buoy site aboard the R/V Shackleford, a 73-foot marine vessel designed to support offshore wind development. TotalEnergies and Cinergy Corp, a non-regulated direct subsidiary of Duke Energy, hold two leases in Carolina Long Bay, an area in the Atlantic Ocean located 22 miles south of Bald Head Island that accounts for 120 square nautical miles.
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.