Advocacy Needed in Support of Offshore Wind

A long-awaited bill in support of offshore wind (SB 170) has been filed. It has passed the state Senate and now moves to the Delaware House of Representatives for consideration.

The bill requires the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to prepare a report covering the following:

• A study of electric transmission of offshore wind power,
• Transmission issues as addressed in neighboring states, and
• The process involved in an offshore wind procurement for Delaware.

This report will be due on December 31, 2023, an important deadline to position the legislature to be ready to consider a procurement bill in January 2024.

A The Nature Conservancy poll released last week shows that 77% of Delawareans say that an offshore wind project for Delaware should be encouraged, or strongly encouraged. The poll included equal numbers of respondents from New Castle and Sussex Counties, with Kent County slightly fewer.

Reasons to support Offshore Wind include the following:

• We need offshore wind power to reach Delaware’s emission reduction goals.
• The cost for consumers is expected to be in the same range or even less expensive than our current electricity rates.
• It is clean but effective power. One 800 megawatt offshore wind project could provide 27% of Delaware’s power.
• Such a project would enhance the state’s quality of life: projections are that harmful emissions avoided would save lives and save money.  

Carbon emissions carry a double hammer: they wreck our atmosphere—causing climate change to speed up—and they wreck our health with co-pollutants such as nitrous oxides, lead, particulate matter, etc., the latter tending to affect underserved communities the most. These co-pollutants especially are what make people sick. Some people get so sick that they die. With an 800 MW offshore wind project, many health-wrecking co-pollutants no longer go into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Researchers have found that the amount of co-pollutants NOT going into the air because such a project is in place is enough to spare health costs of $69 million per year and save many lives per year—avoiding the deaths of very sick people who are so harmed by the co-pollutants that they cannot survive.

Some reasons we need to move quickly on an offshore wind project for Delaware:

• There appear to be only 3 viable remaining offshore wind lease sites available off the coast of Delaware right now. If we don’t move with some alacrity, they will be gobbled up by either Maryland or New Jersey—states with offshore wind goals of 8.5 and 11 gigawatts, respectively.
• If we have to build an offshore wind project off the coast of another state, it’s unlikely that investors will want to build offshore wind service facilities in Delaware, and those jobs will go to that other state. Even the ongoing operations and management facility will be in another state, and Delaware will be deprived of those jobs as well.

As the House begins to consider this bill, we ask that you contact your representative. If he or she is one of the current co-sponsors (Osienski, Baumbach, Phillips, Wilson-Anton, Romer), a ‘thank you’ would be in order. In addition, Representatives Williams and Morrison have indicated support, though not sponsorship. They too should receive positive reinforcement.

For the others, you are urged to contact your Delaware State Representative and explain why this bill is needed for our state. Let him/her know how important support of this measure is, even encouraging them to become a co-sponsor.

The threats to the Delaware way of life from climate change are real. The introduction of wind power energy to our state’s power grid would make a truly significant difference.

To find the contact information for your legislator, click here: https://legis.delaware.gov/FindMyLegislator