Washington wants to focus on floating offshore wind turbines

NEW YORK – The Biden administration, which has already pledged to give new impetus to offshore wind turbines, now wants to emphasize floating wind turbines in order to increase the nation’s clean energy production.

The government announced Thursday that it has set itself the goal of deploying enough floating offshore wind turbines to produce 15 gigawatts of power in 2035, enough to power 5 million homes.

He would also like to reduce the production cost of floating wind turbines by 70% by the same date.

The administration announced last year that it wanted to achieve 30 gigawatts of wind capacity by 2030 and has since taken steps to move forward with several projects.

“Today we are making efforts to seize a new opportunity, which is floating offshore wind, which will allow us to build in deep water areas where turbines cannot be attached directly to the sea floor, but where there are strong winds that we can exploit,” White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy said during a briefing. to reporters.

The administration is particularly considering projects off the coast of California and Oregon to the west, and Maine to the east. It estimates that two-thirds of the United States’ offshore wind energy potential is deep-water.

McCarthy said the technologies are still being developed and the United States, which is far behind the Europeans in offshore wind, wants to move forward this time around.

The administration wants to start this effort by allocating nearly $50 million to research and development projects. It also coordinates between the Departments of Energy and the Interior to ensure that floating wind turbines “can coexist with wild animals and plants and with poachers,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has outlined.

The Department of the Interior, for its part, plans to begin the deepwater concession process, with an initial auction of an area off California at the end of the year.