Offshore Wind Energy’s Massive Advantages

Final Up to date on: sixth June 2025, 04:11 am

Offshore wind energy comes with some massive advantages. It’s not as low cost upfront as solar energy or onshore wind energy, however it additionally comes with some sturdy advantages. I just lately sat down with Susan Muller, a Senior Power Analyst with the Union of Involved Scientists (UCS), to speak about a few of these advantages. Benefit from the dialog beneath, or in your favourite podcast community (hyperlinks beneath).

You’ll be able to hearken to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Overcast, Pocket, Podbean, or Radio Public.

Right here’s extra in textual content from UCS relating to offshore wind energy’s advantages and potential:

“The ‘gas’ for offshore wind is free, which suggests its working prices are very low. When offshore wind is related to the grid, this low-cost vitality provide enters the wholesale vitality market, the place it lowers the value for all vitality bought available in the market. (This ‘benefit order impact’ magnifies the advantages of that free gas many occasions over; a 100 MW challenge related to the PJM system may decrease the value of 100,000 MWh of vitality in any given hour.) The extra offshore wind we join, the higher this impact will probably be.

“Put one other method, offshore wind can cut back the necessity for peaker crops. In wholesale electrical energy markets, peak energy prices set the value for the entire market — sometimes, that’s gas-powered peaker crops that spin up when demand is very excessive. By including extra vitality provide, offshore wind helps ensure these peaker crops don’t must activate, which retains the general wholesale market worth down. (By decreasing a few of that demand for fuel in energy crops, offshore wind additionally places downward stress on fuel costs.)

“New England case examine:

“New Englanders pay among the highest electrical charges within the nation, and this previous winter was the most costly in over a decade. We paid over $4 billion simply to maintain the lights on for 3 months (Dec–Feb). The largest driver of that was the price of the fuel that our fuel crops wanted. (On some days, they have been burning nothing however international LNG, which is extremely costly.) On the similar time, there was an unlimited quantity of offshore wind vitality blowing off our coast for a lot of the winter. If all that offshore wind vitality had been added to the grid, the fee would have been a lot decrease.

“Some model of this sample occurs yearly in New England, with winter chilly snaps driving huge will increase in vitality demand — and vitality costs, as proven by a 2023 RENEW Northeast examine.

“Within the absence of offshore wind, grid operator ISO New England has needed to resort to extraordinarily costly ‘winter reliability’ packages to ensure that vitality provide can sustain with demand throughout chilly snaps. These packages have value near $1 billion over the previous three winters. Offshore wind provides a extra reasonably priced method to defend grid reliability. […]

“Offshore wind is an ample and native vitality useful resource in New England, and including it to our energy provide will give us some aid from the crushing electrical payments that persons are presently experiencing.”

Certainly.