September 17, 2023 — The U.S. has allocated its first floating wind leases and aims to install 15 GW by 2035 but participants warn the first large-scale arrays may still be a decade away.
Development activity is growing on East and West coasts but transmission grids, ports and supply chains must be expanded to achieve commercially viable projects.
California and the East coast state of Maine have set out floating wind targets but different strategies towards the scaling up of floating wind could see their trajectories diverge.
In the U.S.’ first floating wind auction, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) allocated five floating wind projects in California for a total 4.6 GW capacity.
The state of California aims to install 2 to 5 GW of floating wind capacity by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045 but market observers do not expect the first projects to come online before 2035.
The deep waters of the Pacific Coast mean that, unlike on the East Coast, developers will not benefit from infrastructure built earlier for conventional fixed-bottom offshore projects. Ports must be expanded and adapted to assemble huge components and regional supply chains must be built out to achieve economies of scale.
Read the full article at Reuters