Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

This Bipartisan Senate Bill Could Enable US Offshore Wind to Take Off

Green Tech Media: When the U.S. was ready to ramp up its solar industry, developers benefited from investments made in Germany, Spain and elsewhere in Europe that had funded gigawatt-scale annual deployments and pushed down costs. The same could happen with offshore wind.

By the end of 2016, 14.4 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity had been installed globally, with nearly 90 percent of the total deployed in European waters. Prices for projects coming on-line from 2020 have fallen to $50 per megawatt-hour in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. The United States, meanwhile, has so far managed to bring on-line just one modest commercial project, the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm off of Rhode Island.

A bill introduced this summer by a bipartisan group of senators aims to help the U.S. catch up with Europe. On August 1, 2017, Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) introduced the Incentivizing Offshore Wind Power Act with 10 co-sponsors.

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