If all had gone as hoped, wind turbines would have started generating power off Delaware’s coast next year, giving Delaware first-in-the-nation status for offshore wind and an early lead over other states in attracting clean-energy businesses and jobs. After major steps backward and forward this year, champions of the project now expect to see the first spinning windmills by 2014.
While they express optimism that Delaware can prevail in the competition to become a wind-energy leader, key players in the effort voice frustration over bureaucratic delays—and concern that Delaware’s lead in the race is dwindling.
“Other states are moving,” said Representative-elect John Carney, former president of Transformative Technologies, a green technology firm.
“There’s a tremendous first-mover advantage here … for building the supply chain” of windpower-related products and services, Rep.-elect Carney said. “If somebody’s going to move in Rhode Island or Massachusetts or New Jersey, then the suppliers to those projects are going to have a leg up in terms of being a supplier not just for that project, but for others.” (See related story on the windpower supply chain.)
Carney outlines why he believes Delaware can be a wind power leader:
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East Coast competition ramps up
- DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara discusses the Environment America windpower report, joined by UD professor Jeremy Firestone (left) and Environment America’s Hamna Mela (right)
Twelve East Coast states have windfarm proposals on the table, and projects in six of those states are “advancing,” according to a recent report by Environment America and the National Wildlife Federation. Last week Rhode Island-based Deepwater Wind announced plans to build the nation’s largest proposed offshore windfarm. The 200-turbine, 1,000-megawatt project in Rhode Island Sound would include an undersea transmission line to carry power from Massachusetts to New York.
A potential 4.5 gigawatts of commercially viable wind energy generation exists in the shallow waters off the Delaware coast, according to data cited in the Environment America report. But the process of obtaining permits to build the wind turbines to harness some of that energy may take up to seven years total.
Gulf spill causes permitting delays
Federal permitting stalled earlier this year in the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, when the Obama administration revamped the former Minerals Management Agency. The MMA was the lead permitting agency for offshore wind development. Suddenly, NRG Bluewater had a new agency to deal with—the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement—with new regulations.
“There were some delays prior to the time the [Gulf] well was capped and killed,” said Jeremy Firestone, associate professor of marine studies at the University of Delaware. While Firestone does not think there will be further delays, “it is possible that the agency will become more risk averse even in the offshore wind context.”
Despite the upheaval, NRG Bluewater Wind has been “working really well with the federal government,” according to company president Peter Mandelstam. After laws were revised, official permitting began in the spring of this year. Mandelstam said Bluewater Wind has been working “in advance” of federal permitting by conducting geophysical, geotechnical, water, soil, and bird migration studies. “We have had boats out for the past month or so, and will into the winter, to study the birds off of Delaware,” he noted.
Officials concerned about uncertainty
Rep.-elect Carney says the lengthy process of approval has been “very frustrating.” Carney spent two years before his campaign trying to line up businesses in Delaware to be a part of the wind power venture.
“What that does, it makes it more difficult for investors, it makes it more difficult for business people who are trying to get into that business,” Carney said.
Carney discusses problems caused by permitting delays:
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State Representative John Kowalko (D-Newark), who chairs the House Energy Committee, is concerned that fossil fuel interests will continue to resist efforts to bring about growth in renewable energy by discouraging investment and creating “artificial delays” in the permitting process. However, Rep. Kowalko believes that “all of the pieces are in place for a successful enterprise,” and “it’s not an idea that’s going to go away.”
“We understand the growing pains at the federal level,” said Mandelstam. “At the same time, we, and really the entire offshore industry, believe that streamlining is vital.”
Streamlining could help Delaware’s competitors
A recent announcement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that would result in streamlining the permit process is being widely celebrated in the wind power industry and among Delaware elected officials. Ironically, though, the streamlining could wind up blunting the edge that Delaware enjoyed by getting off to an early start on offshore wind planning.
The federal government “Smart from the Start” initiative seeks to identify priority areas of potential for windpower, improves coordination among the states, and accelerates the permit process. As result, projects in other states that were due to come online in 2017 could be up and running in 2015. While Delaware’s offshore wind farm could be in operation in 2014, it is still a tight timeline for efforts to build an “infrastructure” of suppliers and manufacturers.
Senator Tom Carper said Delaware can still be a leader in the field “if we do it right, if we do it well, and if we work hard on it.”
Delaware Secretary of Natural Resources Collin O’Mara said “as the rules are promulgated, and as everything’s put in place, there are opportunities to shave off a decent amount of time because of not needing a second review and a second round of competition.”
“In some ways, it’s great that were blazing the trail,” said O’Mara. The fact that other states’ projects will be aided by Delaware’s trailblazing is “a price we’re willing to pay to help grow an industry that’s going to create significant numbers of jobs.”
DNREC Secretary Collin O’Mara on difficulties in the permitting process (Click here to listen)
Schedule affects Delmarva Power
Facing its own set of deadlines, Delmarva Power is making preparations to purchase the power when it becomes available. In 2008 Delaware’s largest utility reached an agreement with the state and Bluewater Wind to purchase a significant portion of the windpower generated by the planned offshore facility.
State law requires that 20 percent of Delmarva Power’s energy supplied to its Delaware customers come from renewable sources by 2019. Those sources include offshore and land-based wind, solar, and biomass energy, according to Delmarva spokesperson Bridget Shelton.
“We have long-term contracts in place to help us get there, but there will be a future need to acquire more renewables to meet that end goal,” Shelton said.
The utility is contracted to purchase 200 megawatts from Bluewater Wind. Additionally, DPL has long-term contracts to obtain up to 150 megawatts of land-based windpower from windfarms in Pennsylvania and Maryland and a long-term agreement to purchase power from the Dover SunPark, a 10-megawatt solar facility being built in Dover.
Benefits of global competition
In the larger worldwide race to become a hub of offshore wind technology, Delaware and other U.S. hopefuls have some catching up to do. The Environment America reports notes that “984 offshore wind turbines are spinning right now in Europe, and not one in the Atlantic.”
While American researchers are learning from the experiences of Denmark and other European trailblazers, UD professor Firestone notes that environmental conditions that affect offshore wind permitting in the U.S. are somewhat different from those in Europe.
“We do not have experience with offshore wind turbines in the North Atlantic. This may result in different impacts than have been observed in the North Sea,” Firestone said. “One large difference is that the North Atlantic has a number of great whales.”
As the U.S. and other countries navigate their way through the process of establishing offshore wind, America “will benefit from the efforts, the technology development, and the reduction in costs and equipment. The U.S. will be able to produce lots of projects rather quickly, at a good price, because of the work that’s done around the world.”
