Planning for “Blowing in the Wind”
By Barbara Kates-Garnick
Barbara Kates-Garnick is a professor of practice at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. She is a board member of Anbaric, an independent developer of transmission both off and on shore.
In 2022, the view from the windows of the hourly flights between Washington DC and Boston will change as wind machines appear off the northeast coast. The excitement around offshore wind intensified this week as the oil major, BP purchased a 50% share in two proposed wind farms off New York and Massachusetts from Norway’s Equinor, a giant energy company turned wind developer, in a $1.1 billion deal. This sale demonstrates the significance of the offshore wind sector (OSW) as energy giants like Equinor and BP recognize the future importance of large-scale renewables.
By 2022, at least 7,700 of the 9,094 procured megawatts (MW) from offshore wind (OSW) will generate clean power from Virginia to Massachusetts. These turbines are the “tip of the blade” of a clean energy revolution as each wind machine, standing up to 850 feet tall with rotors spanning up to 720 feet--an energy generator in itself--provides up to 12 MW of power in the 11 new offshore wind farms. These wind farms, part of a 29,198 MW commitment, will be one way that the eastern US achieves its clean energy goals.
This new wind energy effort will enable states, once at the end of the ‘fossil fuel energy pipeline,’ to generate indigenous clean energy. Maine, New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C., Connecticut, Virginia, and Rhode Island have all passed laws or are operating under Governor’s orders to achieve 100 percent clean energy between 2032 and 2050. Other states, like Massachusetts, will soon have mandates for clean energy and the achievement of “net zero” emissions. It will mean increased business opportunities through supply chains, at least 36,000 new jobs at various skill levels, and the revitalization of economically hard-hit coastal towns throughout the US Northeast. It’s easy to envision the positive economic jumpstart that will be created from the infrastructure development needed to construct the wind turbines and transport them from the coastal ports to the offshore wind areas designated by the Bureau of Offshore Wind Management (BOEM), a part of the Department of the Interior (DOI).
While the benefits of OSW are clear, the politics of implementation are more complex. The various stakeholders involved in bringing the wind farms to market have competing interests and managing those interests will be a challenge for local policy makers. Individual OSW developers have bid energy prices as low as $58/MWh (megawatt hour) so they will want to bring in their projects as cheaply as possible and on time. That can mean a focus on best routing for localized infrastructure. Local utilities have approved power purchase agreements based on these low costs but need to ensure that local infrastructure will be able to deliver this new energy into the grid as reliably and efficiently as possible. Other critical players in the OSW wind game are the regional ISOs responsible for the reliability of the entire grid so that supply meets 24-hour demand and facilitates smooth functioning of regional energy markets. Optimal infrastructure choices for regional grid efficiency can diverge sometimes from more localized strategies to achieve cost savings. ISOs focus on transmission and delivery infrastructure, ensuring that the large power lines can accommodate the infusion of energy without sending the system crashing into blackouts. The ISOs are key economic and engineering decision makers, behind the scenes to the public, but very much present to all stakeholders concerned about reliability of intermittent renewable resources and the uninterrupted dispatch of energy into the grid.
As we enter the energy transition, we can expect winners and losers who will clearly vocalize their interests. On the generation side, natural gas generators, often provide up to 60% of the region’s energy mix, see their market threatened. Their role will be to backup variable renewables, particularly during cold New England winters. How the market will adjust to these changes is uncertain, but storage and demand response will clearly play an increasing role to balance intermittent wind. Moreover, there is a growing anti-methane sentiment in the New England region, which has manifested itself in anti-pipeline and fracking demonstrations.
Then there are non-industry stakeholders. The public is demanding clean energy as response to climate change. Business and low-income consumers are extremely sensitive to energy costs. Fishing interests, threatened by the looming windmills in the midst of their disappearing fishing grounds, will require that policy makers and project developers focus on their displacement by compensation and retraining. Clearly the stakeholder process will require increasing attention paid to transparency and equity to ensure that energy companies plans result in disadvantaged communities receiving not only health benefits from clean energy but also economic benefits from infrastructure developed in their neighborhoods in the form of jobs and community investment.
There are lessons to be learned from offshore North Sea/North Atlantic Europe, where delivered offshore wind costs are falling and could be subsidy free within five years. Europe’s OSW experience provides insight into offshore grid infrastructure and regulation. European countries have implemented different approaches connecting the wind farms to land. Some countries leave it up to the generators; others have developed independent organizations to oversee grid connections. It is European companies who are currently the major developers of US offshore. They have developed the technical expertise, the supply chains, the materials, and the logistics to build an industry. Thus, as the offshore industry develops, US companies, except for established firms like General Electric, are at a major disadvantage in terms of technology and worker skill sets, a situation soon to be rectified by US investments, local government policies, and public private partnerships.
As decision making reaches an inflection point, thoughtful consideration on how to structure OSW transmission will be critical. The research of the Tufts University Power Systems and Markets Group is arguing that more comprehensive planning is needed to ensure appropriate infrastructure and lowest cost. The Tufts group, a collaboration of the Tufts School of Engineering and The Fletcher School, has provided inputs to policy makers in Massachusetts and recently to New Jersey. This research suggests that an interconnected High Voltage Direct Current (HDVC) underwater grid system that is networked to make land fall at a specific interconnection point is in the long-term interest of energy consumers. Such an interconnected or network grid will be more efficient, less harmful to the fishing interests, and more cost effective in connecting into the land grid.
The latest Tufts report to the state of New Jersey has graphically displayed approved and potential sites and potential interconnection points into the grid. Its graphics illustrate both the opportunities and challenges of developing such a system from an engineering, delivery, and environmental perspective. Among the preliminary and key conclusions from this research is the need for a clearly networked offshore grid and the scale of generation needed to ensure adequate delivery of the resource. If each state develops projects in an independent manner, the potential scale and scope of offshore wind will be stunted, and the economic, environmental and reliability benefits will not be fully realized.
There is still time for regulators, states, grid operators, and wind developers to operationalize their projects in an integrated manner that will optimize end results. The Tufts Power Systems Group study notes that a regional networked grid will not happen organically under current frameworks but will require a coordinated commitment of all stakeholders to realize broader system goals. Only with an integrated approach can the wind farms in 20 years provide clean power to our industries, homes and transportation in a way that is designed to benefit us all. As we fly over the coast and behold the wind farms, we can be assured that they have been developed to provide clean, reliable and cost-effective energy to all.
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