The Biden-Harris Administration has significantly advanced the U.S. offshore wind industry, creating well-paying union jobs, providing clean energy, and supporting American supply chains. With the approval of the 10th offshore wind project, the U.S. now has over 15 gigawatts of capacity, enough to power 5.25 million homes, and is on track to meet the Administration’s goal of 30 gigawatts by 2030. This progress is fueled by the Administration’s commitment to clean energy, workforce development, and streamlined permitting processes, helping tackle climate change and boost the economy.
President Biden and Vice President Harris’s leadership has catalyzed the nation’s offshore wind industry which is creating good-paying and union jobs, establishing and growing new industries in the United States, providing reliable clean power for homes and businesses, strengthening Made in America supply chains, tackling the climate crisis, and helping lower costs for families.
The Biden-Harris Administration has built the offshore wind industry from the ground up. Right now, American workers across manufacturing, shipbuilding, construction, and other sectors are building this new industry. The Administration continues to use every tool available —including leveraging historic resources from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda — to seize near- and long-term offshore wind opportunities across America that will create new jobs for our communities.
At the beginning of this Administration, there were no approved commercial-scale offshore wind projects in federal waters in the United States. Recognizing the urgency of catalyzing this industry to generate clean energy and combat climate change, President Biden set an ambitious goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the 10th approval of a commercial-scale offshore wind project. With this approval, the nation has now approved more than 15 gigawatts of offshore wind projects – enough to power 5.25 million homes, and equivalent to half of the capacity needed to achieve the 30 gigawatt goal.
US Wind’s project offshore Maryland – approved today by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) – will provide up to 2,200 megawatts of clean, reliable renewable energy for the Delmarva Peninsula and power up to 770,000 homes. The development and construction phases of the project are estimated to support up to an estimated 2,679 jobs annually over seven years.
Overall, successfully deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind will help power 10 million homes with clean energy, support 77,000 jobs, avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, and spur $12 billion per year in private investment in offshore wind projects.
Today’s announcement builds on significant progress that the Biden-Harris Administration has made to accelerate project reviews while protecting communities and our environment. Recent data demonstrates that the Biden-Harris Administration is delivering more projects, more quickly than the previous Administration.
Today’s milestones build on the Administration’s progress to grow our nation’s offshore wind industry, including:
Advancing Offshore Wind off Every Coast
Since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department of the Interior has held five offshore wind lease auctions providing more than 1.3 million new acres for development – including a record-breaking sale offshore New York and New Jersey that generated more than $4 billion in winning bids. The Department of the Interior also held first-ever sales offshore the Pacific and Gulf Coasts; held the first sale in the Central Atlantic region in a decade; and announced the first-ever sales offshore Oregon and in the Gulf of Maine. Earlier this year, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a new five-year offshore wind leasing schedule that aims to hold up to 12 potential offshore wind sales through 2028, including potential first-ever sales in HawaiˋI and a U.S. Territory. Because of the Administration’s progress on permitting the nation’s first offshore wind projects and leasing new areas, the total U.S. offshore wind project pipeline now exceeds 80 gigawatts, enough to power more than 26 million homes if fully developed.
Investing in Workers and Communities
The Administration is advancing offshore wind development in a way that will maximize benefits for local communities and create good-paying jobs for American workers, including by harnessing a range of clean energy tax credits from President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda and federal financing programs across the Departments of Energy, the Interior, Commerce, and Transportation. The Department of the Interior has also introduced innovative provisions in lease sales supporting workforce training and union-built projects, domestic supply chain development, and community benefit agreements —including with Tribes and stakeholder groups. The Energy Department has charted a path to grow and train an American workforce to fill tens of thousands of jobs across the offshore wind industry. The Administration’s Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership is working to strengthen regional collaboration on offshore wind supply chain development, to unlock more American job opportunities. With these efforts driving progress, offshore wind investments announced during the Biden-Harris Administration now include more than $6.9 billion across 19 manufacturing facilities and 15 ports, as well as 25 new offshore wind vessels being built in 8 different states, totaling thousands of new jobs.
Accelerating Offshore Wind Permitting
Today’s tenth offshore wind project approval, reflecting collaboration across federal agencies, is part of comprehensive Administration efforts to improve the federal permitting process, including: investing over $1 billion through Inflation Reduction Act funds to hire experts and invest in new technologies to expedite reviews; passing the first reforms to modernize the National Environmental Policy Act for the first time in 50 years; and using executive authorities, wherever possible, to improve permitting and environmental review processes. Earlier this year, the Department of the Interior finalized a rule that is expected to save offshore wind developers about $1.9 billion over 20 years by modernizing regulations for offshore renewable energy development. The Department of the Interior is also developing programmatic environmental impact statements for the New York Bight and California offshore wind lease areas to create efficiencies for individual project reviews. Additionally, BOEM and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a joint strategy to protect and promote the recovery of endangered North Atlantic right whales while responsibly developing offshore wind energy. These agencies are also deploying Inflation Reduction Act funding and working with industry and environmental stakeholders to advance whale detection and monitoring technologies.
Strengthening Transmission and Port Infrastructure for Offshore Wind
The Departments of the Interior and Energy released An Action Plan for Offshore Wind Transmission Development in the U.S. Atlantic Region, a set of bold actions that will catalyze grid upgrades to boost offshore wind energy, strengthen the domestic supply chain, and create good-paying, union jobs. Similar efforts are underway along the West and Gulf coasts. These efforts are funded from the Inflation Reduction Act for offshore wind and interregional transmission analyses and convenings. This summer, the Department of Energy announced federal transmission investments that will help connect 4,800 megawatts of offshore wind to the New England grid and provide economic development grants to several communities that will host offshore wind transmission infrastructure. To help build out the port capacity needed for offshore wind manufacturing and project construction, the Department of Transportation has awarded more than $675 million in grants for East Coast and West Coast ports to support offshore wind activities.
Advancing Floating Offshore Wind Innovation and Deployment
Deep-water areas that require floating platforms are home to two-thirds of America’s offshore wind energy potential, including along the West Coast and in the Gulf of Maine. To seize these opportunities, the Department of the Interior set a goal to deploy 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035—enough to power over five million American homes. And the Administration launched an interagency Floating Offshore Wind Shot, which seeks to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind energy by more than 70 percent by 2035. The Departments of Energy, the Interior, Commerce, and Transportation have already achieved over 50 milestones and dedicated over $950 million to advance the Floating Offshore Wind Shot and American competitiveness on floating offshore wind turbine design, development, and manufacturing. Last month, the Department of the Interior announced the execution of the nation’s first floating offshore wind energy research lease offshore Maine.
Biden-Harris Administration Hits Offshore Wind Milestone, Continues to Advance Clean Energy Opportunities
September 5 2024 White House. Briefing Room. Washington, DC USA
Sources: Midtown Tribune news, WH.gov