Photo above: An offshore wind farm. (California Energy Commission)
Offshore wind represents a vast, untapped source of clean energy for California. Project Drawdown rated offshore wind turbines the twenty-second most effective out of one hundred featured solutions in 2016.
The California coast is an area of high wind and also of high-density population, where electric power is most needed. Offshore winds ramp up in the evening when solar power drops off.
Offshore wind farms will free land for purposes other than wind or solar farms. They will be out of the paths of migrating birds and will not contribute to the deaths of birds and bats. Their construction will create high-paying jobs in both building and maintaining the turbines, as well as jobs connected with infrastructure, transmission, and storage.
There are two types of offshore turbines: those on a platform with a foundation in shallow water, and floating turbines in deep water as far as twenty miles offshore. The latter is the type best suited for California. The large components of turbines will be transported by ships and barges, not trucks. This is easier than transporting the huge parts overland to land wind farms. Under-seabed cables will transmit electricity to the grid, promising to reduce the threat of powerline-caused wildfires. There is ongoing research to address the impact of hurricanes and other environmental issues.
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has filed a notice of intent to prepare two environmental studies for future commercial wind-lease locations off the coast of Humboldt and San Luis Obispo Counties. Redwood Coast Energy Authority has taken the lead on coordinating an extensive planning and research process required for what could be California’s first floating offshore wind development twenty miles off the coast of Humboldt County. The next step is a federal west coast lease auction in 2021. Since 2016, the cost of components and construction has gone down, making offshore wind even more cost-effective.
AB-525, the “Energy: Offshore Wind Generation” bill introduced by Assemblymember David Chiu, would require the California Energy Commission to achieve a goal of 10,000 megawatts of offshore wind off the coast of California by 2040. SB-413, “Electricity: Offshore Wind Generation Facilities, Site Certification,” introduced by Senator Mike McGuire, provides protections for sea life and the communities near offshore turbines.
—Rae Aaselund, Natural Resources Committee
