Wind

Donald Trumped | US offshore wind joy as House backs end to southeast project ban

House of Representatives would rescind Trump-era ban on offshore energy development in the southeast Atlantic, with bill heading to the Senate

Former US President Donald Trump
Former US President Donald TrumpFoto: NICHOLAS KAMM
  • Tim Ferry
The US House of Representatives passed an amendment to legislation that would end the Trump-era moratorium on offshore energy development in the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of the southeast states of North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

House bill 7900, the National Defence Authorisation Act of 2023, passed on Thursday, would: “Restore[s] the Department of Interior's authority to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, while leaving the leasing moratorium in place in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico at the request of the Department of Defense.”

The defence bill is still under consideration by the Senate with no guarantee that the language removing the ban will remain in the final bill, however.

Former president Donald Trump issued the ban in the waning days of his presidency ostensibly to stop offshore oil & gas development, but the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) later determined that it likewise applied to offshore wind.

BOEM sits under the Department of Interior and is the federal regulator of energy development on the outer continental shelf (OCS).

“American Clean Power applauds the passage of the bipartisan amendment,” said Heather Zichal, CEO of industry advocacy group the American Clean Power Association.

Although Trump issued the moratorium as an executive order, which typically could be rescinded by further executive action by the next president, a judge ruled in a separate case that the language under which offshore wind development is authorised, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). The OCSLA allows the president to remove areas of the OCS from consideration for energy development, but not rescind bans once they are in effect, and only an act of Congress can rescind the moratorium.

The moratorium, which took effect 1 July this year, was a factor behind the accelerated leasing schedule in the Carolina Long Bay off the maritime border of North and South Carolina, with an estimated 1.5GW of potential. Held in May, the auction saw oil major TotalEnergies and local utility Duke Energy each walk away with a lease for a total sale price of $315m.

While the industry has long sought the elimination of the ban, it remains unclear how much impact it would have on the overall US picture.

BOEM has established another four wind energy ‘call areas’ totalling more than 1,100 miles2 (1,770km2) off South Carolina alone, putting both North and South Carolina in line to generate nearly $45bn in capital investment and over 37,000 jobs supported annually over the next decade from offshore wind, according to a report from research group Wood Mackenzie last year.
“This amendment is an important step to ensure that state procurement goals are met and southeastern states have the opportunity to capture their share of the $109B offshore wind industry,” Katharine Kollins, president of Southeastern Wind Coalition, an industry advocacy association, told Recharge.
Interest of the impacted states has been muted, however, with North Carolina the only one to set an offshore wind policy so far. Governor Roy Cooper last year fixed a target of 2.8GW of offshore wind power by 2030 and 8GW by 2040 off North Carolina’s shores. With the Carolina Long Bay and the 2.5GW Kitty Hawk project on its northern border with Virginia, the state has some 4GW-5GW of project potential.

Governor Cooper’s offshore wind target is not a legal mandate, however, and the state lacks a clear pathway to market, and while Avangrid-owned Kitty Hawk is slated to receive federal approval next year, the project still remains without offtake. Bets are that it will sell its power to Virginia, which has a legal requirement for 5.2GW of offshore wind capacity by 2035.

South Carolina has taken some tentative steps towards establishing an offshore wind policy, and the state is home to several players in the budding US supply chain, including Nexans’ export cable making plant in Charleston, South Carolina, but the state has made no policy commitments.

Georgia and Florida have not expressed any interest in offshore wind development.

The region is also less attractive than the windier coastlines of the US northeast, with lower wind speeds, softer soils making for costlier installation, and frequent hurricanes that require more robust turbines.

Last May, Samantha Bobo, wind energy analyst with S&P who has since moved analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, told Recharge: “The farther south you go, the worse the resources get, including issues like seabed substrate that makes installation a bit more difficult.
“I'm not sure if more areas would be opened up farther south on the Atlantic Coast of the Carolinas. If we're going to do anything farther south it would be Gulf of Mexico.”

BOEM recently unveiled plans to establish up to 11 wind energy areas with as much as 16GW of potential in the 30-million-acre Gulf of Mexico call area stretching from Louisiana to the Texas-Mexico border.

(Copyright)
Published 15 July 2022, 17:20Updated 15 July 2022, 21:48
AmericasUSNorth CarolinaDonald TrumpHOuse of Representatives