The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released the West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Study and Action Plan for Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the western United States. Funded by the DOE’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO) and co-managed by the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO), the study was conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) over two years. It examines the costs and benefits of deploying floating offshore wind turbines along the Pacific coast.
The findings suggest that floating offshore wind could supply 33 GW of energy to the western U.S. by 2050. Additional transmission infrastructure developed for offshore wind could also facilitate the transport of lower-cost onshore energy sources, including solar, land-based wind, and hydropower.
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the action plan outlines solutions to coastal and offshore wind transmission challenges. It provides recommendations for integrating the first generation of West Coast offshore wind projects into the Western electric grid and planning transmission expansion for the coming decades.
