Offshore Wind Presents Big Challenge for the Electric Grid

Energy Policy Now

Large scale offshore wind development will require a rethink of how America’s electric grid is designed, and paid for.
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Over the coming decade, a number of states along the East Coast of the U.S. will deploy massive offshore windfarms in the Atlantic Ocean as part of their efforts to meet clean energy goals and reduce global warming emissions. Planning for the wind farms is well underway, and the first projects sponsored by New York, New Jersey and other coastal states are expected to begin generating electricity by 2025.
Yet reaching long term, aggressive offshore wind power targets presents numerous challenges. The most pressing may be the need to build out the electric grid to reliably and economically deliver vast quantities of offshore wind power to market. This is an issue that the states, offshore wind developers, and operators of the country’s electric grid are now grappling with. Solutions may require a fundamental reworking of how the electric grid is planned and financed.
Brandon Burke, Policy and Outreach Director with the Business Network for Offshore Wind, discusses the challenge of transforming the electric grid to enable offshore wind power.
Brandon Burke is an attorney and Policy and Outreach Director with the Business Network for Offshore Wind. Brandon is a 2018 graduate of the Kleinman Center’s Certificate in Energy Management and Policy program.
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