The US Energy Department has announced a new report, Offshore Wind Market and Economic Analysis, showing steady progress for the US offshore wind energy industry over the past year.
The report highlights 14 projects in advanced stages of development, together representing nearly 4,900MW of potential offshore wind energy capacity for the USA. The report also finds that globally, developers continue to build offshore wind projects farther from shore in increasingly deeper waters, while increased turbine sizes and hub heights enable higher efficiency and output from turbines. Worldwide, the average capital cost for offshore wind projects completed in 2013 fell 3.7% per kilowatt-hour from 2012, with an additional decrease expected in 2014. Total project installation costs have fallen 6% since 2011. The Energy Department has also announced the first National Offshore Wind Energy Grid Interconnection Study, prepared for the Department by the ABB Group. The study investigated the key economic and technological factors that will influence the integration of offshore wind energy onto the national grid. The findings suggest that the USA has sufficient offshore wind energy resources to enable installation of at least 54GW of offshore wind capacity and that the appropriate transmission technologies already exist to connect this offshore wind energy to the grid.