Pueblo wind power plant expansion to create jobs and lower electricity bills - KOAA News 5
Pueblo wind power plant expansion to create jobs and lower electricity bills
PUEBLO, Colo. — Gov. Jared Polis (D) celebrated a planned expansion of the CS Wind power plant Tuesday. The plant is planned to double in size, creating more jobs and wind energy for the state.
"The success of CS Wind is Colorado's success," said Gov. Polis.
CS Wind is based in South Korea. The wind power plant in Pueblo is its largest plant and wind turbine tower supplier in the world.
"Nobody in the world can compete," said the had of CS Wind of America James Won.
Won said the expansion will create more than 850 jobs.
"My theory is that nobody should have to move from Pueblo in order to make a living," said Pueblo Mayor Nick Gradisar.
CS Wind officials said the expansion will generate three times more wind energy for Colorado.
The more wind energy, the more families can save on electricity bills long-term, said Gradisar.
"That's important to Pueblo because it have some of the highest electricity rates in the state along the front range," said Gradisar.
CS Wind officials said they chose to partner with Pueblo because of easy access to raw steel.
"[The raw steel is] coming from United States, sometimes from Illinois or Wisconsin, we usually have several of these partners," said Won.
Gov. Polis said Colorado is 7th in the country for supplying win generated energy. He said the expansion gets the state closer to reaching the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2040.
Construction will be done in 3 phases and be complete in 2028 said Won.
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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.