July 25, 2022 — More than half a million acres of Gulf of Mexico waters some 24 miles off the coast of Galveston could be dotted by wind turbines after federal officials on Wednesday said they are considering leasing the area for energy projects.
The proposed “wind energy area” covers 546,645 acres — larger than the city of Houston — and could produce enough electricity to power about 2.3 million homes, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said.
A second proposal about 64 miles off the coast of Lake Charles, La., would cover 188,023 acres and could produce power for 799,000 homes, officials said.
The wind energy area proposal is still just a draft, the bureau said. Visitors to its website can comment on the plans, and the bureau will hold online public meetings Aug. 9 and 11 to discuss the proposals.
The announcement is part of a Biden administration initiative to help develop 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind generation by 2030, a jaw-dropping increase from the 42 megawatts of electricity produced by the only two offshore wind farms in operation nationwide. Those projects, off the coasts of Virginia and Rhode Island, are in state waters; there are no projects in federal waters.
Another 15 projects are in the permitting phase, and eight states have set goals to procure a combined 39,298 megawatts from offshore operations by 2040, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. One megawatt is enough to power about 200 homes on a hot summer day.
If the offshore wind power flows into Electric Reliability Council of Texas, it could help the grid meet the record-breaking and growing demand the nonprofit grid operator has seen in recent months. For a moment Wednesday afternoon, demand surpassed 80,000 megawatts for the first time.
Some state officials, including ERCOT interim CEO Brad Jones and Gov. Greg Abbott, have blamed low output from the state’s onshore wind fleet for tight grid conditions this summer, although it has long been known that wind blows less on hot summer days and is usually strongest during winters and in the evenings. Offshore wind, however, performs much better during the middle of hot days.