Offshore wind is coming to the West Coast with an ambitious new technology: floating platforms. In December of 2022, five leases were auctioned off for offshore wind development. The lease areas are just off the California coast, about 20 miles from Morro Bay and Humboldt County.
The turbines will have floating platforms to accommodate the deep waters, unlike those along the East Coast, which are fixed-bottom turbines.
While developers still struggle to make some of those East Coast projects financially feasible, the industry is becoming even more ambitious in its approach to California.
Floating platform turbines are currently more expensive than fixed-bottom ones. The Department of Energy’s modeling shows that the average cost of floating wind energy, when considering the energy it produces, will decrease by 2035, but remain higher than that of fixed-bottom offshore wind.
The Biden administration is trying to reduce the cost by more than 70% by 2035 through initiatives such as scaling up domestic manufacturing and developing more cost-efficient technologies.
There are other challenges associated with this push off the West Coast, namely the potential impact on the environment, on migrating whales and other marine life. While turbines operate in water around the world, scientists don’t know for sure what the effects will be in this part of the Pacific.
Environmental reviews, permitting, and construction will take years, so it could be a decade before offshore wind farms along the West Coast start producing energy.