By the Year 2050, The Feds Want to Power 23 Million Homes Using Offshore Wind Power
Three Wind Turbines from the Deepwater Wind Project off Block Island, R.I., were viewed Monday, Aug. 15, 2016. Deepwater Wind's $300 Million Five-Turbine Wind Farm off Block Island is expected to be Operational this Fall.
This article originally appeared on Grist.org
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A key moment for the future of clean energy in America will take place in the frigid waters of the Atlantic in two months.
That’s when the country’s first offshore wind farm will start sending electricity through a submerged cable line to the mainland and into the electrical grid. Sitting three miles off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island, the farm is supposed to generate enough energy to power 17,000 homes. That may be a tiny number compared to the 23 million homes that the feds want powered by offshore wind by the year 2050, but it’s the precedent that counts.
The potential for offshore wind power is enormous. The Department of Energy thinks offshore wind could one day deliver twice as much electricity as Americans used to keep the grid stable last year. The federal government needs offshore wind to deliver on this promise if it’s going to have a shot at fulfilling its commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate agreement.

But first power companies have to see how well offshore wind turbines work. There are some formidable challenges. Underwater land is cheap, and wind is free, but installing any kind of infrastructure underwater is tough, expensive work. Electricity is so cheap in most parts of the country that new renewable energy technology can’t compete.
Deepwater Wind, the company behind the turbines, lucked out when it found Block Island. While not all of the island’s residents are thrilled about the windmills, they were already paying some of the highest utility rates in the country, all of it from generators burning diesel fuel.
In a recent interview, Jeffrey Grybowski, Deepwater Wind’s CEO, talked to me about his company’s plans and why the first wind farm in the U.S. just happens to be off the East Coast. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.
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Q.--Why are you putting the wind farm in the Northeast, instead of somewhere else in the country?
A.--It’s a happy coincidence that the Northeast – the southern Northeast and New York area – happens to be the best place in the United States to build offshore wind. The wind is world-class and the geology is suitable to building offshore. In general, you want to avoid big boulders and bedrock. Basically, what you would consider good soil to drive a post through is the kind of soil we are looking for offshore.
We’re also lucky in that we have communities here on Long Island and Block Island and Southern New England that need new clean energy resources, and that are difficult places to build new projects onshore. It’s hard to find a place on Long Island where you could build a wind farm onshore.
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Q.--But what about a place like Hawaii? They also have good wind and a strong need for clean energy.
A.--The turbines at Block Island are 90 feet deep. If you go fifteen miles off the Pacific coast you are thousands of feet deep. Hawaii is basically the tip of a mountaintop.
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So the solution you would need to go to the Pacific is a structure that floats. There are no commercial floating wind farms in the world today – just a handful of R&D projects. The technology just isn’t quite ready.
But there’s a big difference between the East Coast and the West Coast. On the east coast you have a continental shelf that keeps water a few hundred feet deep for miles and miles. We could have farms from Maine down the Atlantic coast.
