Off the coast of the smallest town in the smallest state stands a historic site: the first commercial-scale offshore wind development in the United States.
Rising out of the Atlantic Ocean four miles from Rhode Island’s shore, Block Island Wind Farm’s five turbines rotate in the stiff ocean breeze. Towering 589 feet above the waves and fitted with 240 foot blades, each turbine is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and capable of generating six megawatts of electricity per year. Together, the five turbines generate enough electricity to power 17,000 homes.
Operated by the Providence-based renewable energy company Deepwater Wind, construction was completed in August 2016 at a cost of $300 million. The wind farm began powering Block Island, as well as thousands of mainland businesses and homes, in late 2016.
Prior to the arrival of Deepwater Wind, Block Island was not connected to the mainland electrical grid. Instead, diesel generators burned one million gallons of fuel each year to power the island, causing dramatic fluctuations in energy prices. During the summer months, when 20,000 tourists visit the island, electricity rates could spike as high as 50 cents per kilowatt hour. Residents on the mainland paid an average of 14 cents per kilowatt hour.
Deepwater Wind has agreed to sell electricity generated by offshore wind for 24 cents per kilowatt hour. While significantly higher than mainland prices, the new energy source will reduce annual electricity costs for island residents.
The project has benefited the island in other ways. Submarine cables laid during construction to connect Block Island to the electrical grid will provide high speed Internet connectivity, improving the island’s historically sluggish Internet connection. The community also hopes the wind farm will generate opportunities for additional tourism.
Energy prices for offshore wind are projected to decrease as the technology matures and more projects come online. Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Standard, established in 2004, sets the goal for 16 percent of the state’s energy production to come from renewables by 2019. Other Northeastern states have followed suit. In 2016, Massachusetts’ Republican Governor Charlie Baker signed a law mandating that utilities purchase 1,600 megawatts of renewable energy by 2027, and New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo approved a plan for his state to generate 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. Because offshore wind can be located close to urban centers without competing for heavily developed space on land, offshore wind power can play a large role in these states reaching their energy goals.
Strong and reliable winds along U.S. coasts hold the potential to generate sizeable amounts of energy. While thousands of land-based wind farms already dot windswept states, such as Texas and Iowa, offshore wind energy has been slow to develop due to concerns about cost and use conflicts with fishing and navigation industries. Block Island avoided many of these concerns by engaging stakeholders in an ocean planning process called the Special Area Management Plan. This planning process provided Deepwater Wind and commercial fishermen with a forum to discuss and mitigate use conflicts.
Deepwater Wind and other developers are pushing forward to make offshore wind a renewable energy staple along the East Coast. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management leased one potential offshore wind energy site near Block Island, the Rhode Island-Massachusetts Area of Mutual Interest, to Deepwater Wind in 2013. When fully developed, the area will be capable of generating three gigawatts of electricity, enough energy to power more than one million homes.
To further promote offshore wind development, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy released an updated National Offshore Wind Strategy in 2016 to highlight actions that can be taken to address gaps faced by the industry. In addition to implementing this strategy, the United States will need ongoing commitments to ocean planning, targeted technology investments, and power purchase incentives to realize the full potential of offshore wind energy.
(Video Credit: VICE News).
Published in March, 2017, by the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative.