Offshore Wind Could Generate 8% Of USA’s Electricity By 2050: NREL

Vestas Nets 1.38 GW Norfolk Vanguard West Offshore Wind Project

The NREL has released a report on, “Expanded Modelling Scenarios”. which helps to understand the role of offshore wind in decarbonizing the United States. The report estimates that 20% of regional power needs could be served alongside the Atlantic coast to support offshore wind farms by 2050. 

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC. In its report it has identifies offshore wind to become a driver of development. The researchers have found that the offshore wind could generate as much as 8% of the nation’s electricity by 2050. It further found that, the deployments could range widely, from 30 to 250 gigawatts, depending on how a variety of factors related to the power system evolve over the coming decades.

Analysis

This report appeared in the journal of Nature Energy.  The NREL report has co-authors Philipp Beiter, Trieu Mai, and Matt Mowers in collaboration with John Bistline, from an independent, nonprofit energy R&D institute EPRI. 
These authors deploy a capacity expansion model and find that high levels of offshore wind deployment are estimated in certain scenarios. The report portrays scenarios that are a combination of stringent decarbonization policies, low technology costs, fewer siting options for onshore renewables, and limited interregional transmission. For example, the study estimates a core scenario that considers strict zoning regulations for onshore wind and solar panels that expand offshore wind’s market potential.

Key Finding of the Study

In numerous scenarios studied, the report has found the offshore wind deployment to be limited to the level defined by current state commitments. The study has shown that solar photovoltaics and onshore wind can meet new electricity demand through 2050. This means that the amount of energy from nuclear, hydropower, and fossil fuels is relatively constant across the scenarios, where, fossil generation can be limited with an emissions cap, unless carbon capture and sequestration technology is made economically viable.

The study finds that in the scenario of high load growth and electrification, offshore wind is to account for 133 gigawatts by 2050. In comparison, the installed land-based wind farms in the United States today amount to a total of about 141 gigawatts and produce 10% of the country’s electricity.

Currently, in the United States, only two small offshore wind plants off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia are currently in operation. But many more are proposed along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The report finds that the first U.S. large-scale offshore wind farm—with a planned installed capacity of 800 megawatts—could start generating power as early as this autumn off the coast of Massachusetts.

The high uncertainty about future decarbonization pathways also raises the need for greater coordination between local, state, and federal authorities in power sector and offshore wind infrastructure planning, the researchers noted.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office funded the research. 

In another report by the ‘GWEC Global Offshore Wind 2023’ cites that for fulfilling demand for large offshore wind, and turbine installation of vessels requires trained workforce with adequate operational knowhow for regional cooperation in the APAC Asia–Pacific region. The study finds that its timely deployment will foster cooperation especially in new markets such as India, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand.