Talks underway for offshore wind in Louisiana state waters: governor

Louisiana has received as many as three bids for offshore wind projects in state waters that could drive sector development “several years before they can be successful in federal waters,” governor Jon Bel Edwards told an industry conference in New Orleans.

“We’re seeing tremendous interest,” he said, noting that two firms are already in negotiations with the Louisiana Mineral and Energy Board for leases, while a third has likewise piled in.

DOW last September signed a memorandum of understanding with utility Entergy to evaluate “potential early development of wind power generation in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM)”, according to a press release.

The news comes as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), lead regulator of energy development in federal waters, is expected to announce an auction soon for three leases in the Gulf to be held later this year.

Amid a rigorous and inefficient federal permitting regime, project timelines have so far been a decade, though, potentially allowing wind farms in state waters to come to market faster.

He expects “actual development heading towards project completion between 2027 and 2029,” he said.

Decarbonise industry

Despite lower average wind speeds, the threat of hurricanes, and soft soils that prevent use of lower-price monopile foundations, the GoM has garnered considerable interest from developers and industry associations, including Orsted, RWE, Equinor, Avangrid, and TotalEnergies.

Proximity to Louisiana's extensive oil & gas infrastructure is among the key attributes for the region, with comments on BOEM’s website flagging potential offshore wind-plus-hydrogen projects. Shell has expressed interest in both developing offshore wind in the region and participating in GNO's H2theFuture plan to decarbonise the south Louisiana industrial corridor using green hydrogen.

Louisiana state representative Joseph Orgeron told a Cleanpower panel that the projects under consideration would be “pilots”. Poole said the projects would be commercial in scale but “their offtake pathway is not necessarily set in stone nor uniform”.

“It's just as likely that they might pursue grid integration as they will direct that equivalent capacity to an electrolyser for green hydrogen,” he said, noting that proximity to a load centre would be a factor.

Demand is being driven by Louisiana’s state target of 5GW by 2035 as part of its sweeping Climate Action Plan that would see the state reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

In contrast to most US states, Louisiana has a substantial industrial sector concentrated in oil and natural gas processing and chemicals manufacturing that is responsible for some 66% of state emissions.

“The single most important thing we have to do for us to realise our climate action plan goals, we have to electrify our industrial processes,” Edwards said.

“That has to be renewable electricity to the maximum extent possible,” he added.

Maritime logistics firm Crowley meanwhile has already entered into an agreement with an undisclosed developer to construct a terminal at Port Fourchon 158km south of New Orleans for projects in federal waters.

Wind speeds in Louisiana state waters average 7-7.5 metres per second (m/s), according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), just above the minimum for commercial scale development, while those in the federal WEAs are higher at 7.5-8 m/s.

“Average wind speeds may be a little bit lower here [but offshore wind] is critically important for us,” said Edwards.