Offshore wind policy in California has transformed rapidly since 2018, and the state is now at the precipice of getting floating offshore wind farms established in the Pacific Ocean. That is one of the takeaways from a panel discussion hosted by Reuters last month with industry and government leaders from the offshore wind sector.
Floating offshore wind has the potential to contribute significantly to the federal goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. “About two-thirds of our four terawatts of offshore wind potential in the United States is in deeper waters that require floating offshore, and that includes the entirety of the West Coast,” said Jocelyn Brown-Saracino, U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) offshore wind lead.
One of the main challenges for California wind developers at the moment, notes Jennifer Palestrant, senior vice president for public affairs in offshore wind at Invenergy, is procurement. “We have to have a way to sell t