US to Soon Decide on Whether to Give Go-Ahead to Empire Wind 1 & 2 Offshore Wind Farms | Offshore Wind - Offshore WIND
US to Soon Decide on Whether to Give Go-Ahead to Empire Wind 1 & 2 Offshore Wind Farms | Offshore Wind
US to Soon Decide on Whether to Give Go-Ahead to Empire Wind 1 & 2 Offshore Wind Farms
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed the environmental review of the Empire Wind 1 & 2 offshore wind farms, proposed to be built offshore New York by a joint venture of BP and Equinor, and plans to issue a Record of Decision (ROD) on whether to approve the project this autumn.
The federal agency has now issued the final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which analyses the potential environmental impacts of the activities laid out in the projects’ Construction and Operations Plan (COP), and will publish a Notice of Availability for the final EIS in the Federal Register on the 15th of September.
The sites of the 810 MW Empire Wind 1 and the 1,260 MW Empire Wind 2 are planned to be built in the Empire Wind lease area, for which Equinor acquired the lease in 2017 and is, together with BP, developing it in two phases. The lease area is located 15-30 miles (24-48 kilometres) southeast of Long Island, in water depths of 65-131 feet (20-40 metres).
Empire Wind 1 is proposed to have up to 57 wind turbines, while Empire Wind 2 is planned to comprise up to 90 wind turbines.
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The 816 MW Empire Wind Phase 1 wind farm which was selected in New York’s first-ever offshore wind solicitation in 2019 alongside Ørsted and Eversource Energy’s Sunrise Wind project.
The 1,260 MW Empire Wind 2 was selected in the state’s offshore wind power solicitation in January 2021 together with their Beacon Wind 1 project south of Nantucket.
If approved, the two projects’ combined capacity of 2 GW could power 700,000 New York households.
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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.