US Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell has announced the first offshore wind project proposed for federal waters off the West Coast. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has given the green light for Principle Power, Inc. to submit a formal plan to build a 30MW pilot project using floating wind turbine technology offshore Coos Bay, Oregon.
Principle Power, Inc. will seek to site its project within a 15 square mile proposed lease area. The project is designed to generate electricity from five floating “WindFloat” units, each equipped with a 6MW offshore wind turbine. The turbines would be connected by electrical cables and have a single power cable transmitting the electricity to the mainland. The facility, sited in about 1,400 feet of water, would be the first offshore wind project proposed in federal waters off the West Coast and the first in the nation to use a floating structure to support offshore wind generation in the Outer Continental Shelf.
