Will offshore wind projects in shallow waters advance work on siting wind farms in deep waters?
According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, maximizing the benefits from offshore wind energy in the United States will eventually require developing wind farms in waters up to several thousand feet deep. Technologies for wind energy generation at these depths are probably a decade or more from commercialization. Constructing wind farms in shallow waters will provide insights into many technical, environmental, and regulatory issues that are also applicable to deepwater wind generation, in the same way that offshore oil and gas drilling in shallow waters fostered the development of technologies for drilling in thousands of feet of water today. This can help New England develop the infrastructure and capabilities for subsequent deepwater projects. The Northeast coast (New England and the mid-Atlantic states) is an attractive region for developing offshore wind energy in shallow waters because slightly more than half of the nation’s identified offshore wind energy potential li
