UK names 'offshore wind champion' as new net zero chief
UK names 'offshore wind champion' as new net zero chief | Windpower Monthly
An MP who championed the UK’s offshore wind credentials has been appointed as the country’s new secretary of state for energy security and net zero.
Claire Coutinho is the sitting MP for East Surrey and replaces Grant Shapps in the role following a miniature reshuffle of the Conservative government’s cabinet announced today (31 August). Shapps had been appointed to the role in February.
Renewable energy body RenewableUK was among those welcoming Coutinho’s appointment and noted that she had "championed offshore wind" in her maiden speech to parliament in 2020.
“I’m delighted that Claire Coutinho is taking up this crucial role, at a time when the clean energy sector is facing unprecedented global economic challenges. We need urgent intervention from the new Secretary of State to re-establish the UK as the best destination for international investment in renewables, as our competitors are upping the ante and trying to lure developers and manufacturers elsewhere,” said RenewableUK CEO Dan McGrail.
McGrail said there was much goodwill in the renewable energy sector towards Coutinho, who is also a member of the Conservative Environment Network – which describes itself as "an independent forum for conservatives in the UK and around the world who support net zero, nature restoration, and resource security – and a previous vice-chair of the all party parliamentary group on sustainable finance.
Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank added that Coutinho will have a "pretty full" in-tray.
She added that the upcoming announcement on the UK's most recent contracts for difference tender will likely "not deliver much" and that the government is "yet to make real progress" on ending the UK's de-facto onshore wind ban.
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.