Offshore Wind Technology and Status - Structural Integrity of Offshore Wind Turbines - page 30

FIGURE 2-11 Proposed U.S. offshore wind projects and capacity showing
projects with significant progress. (S OURCE : Musial and Ram 2010.)
Energy published a report that suggested that 20 percent of the nation's
electric power could be produced by wind energy by 2030 under certain
scenarios that assumed “favorable but realistic” market conditions
(USDOE 2008). In that report, the contribution of offshore wind was
found to be a necessary component to achieve 20 percent electricity from
wind energy. The scenario analyzed estimated that 54,000 MW of capac-
ity would come from offshore sources.
Several projects that have advanced significantly in the U.S. permit-
ting process to date are shown in Figure 2-11. As the map indicates, most
of the activity is in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, but offshore
wind is being considered in most regions off the U.S. coast, including the
Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and even the West Coast. The West
Coast has much greater water depths close to shore, however, and this is
likely to constrain development in the near term despite a good wind
resource, because wind turbine designs for such deep waters are just
entering the prototype demonstration phase (Moe, 2010; Pool 2010).
Proposed U.S. offshore wind projects can be divided into two regula-
tory groups: those in federal waters (i.e., outside the 3-nautical mile state
boundary) and those under state jurisdiction. State projects are typically
near shore and have marginally lower wind resources. In the long term,