The US Department of Energy has published a new strategy to reach President Biden’s goal of 30GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and set a course for having 110GW of capacity by 2050.
The strategy includes a series of initiatives to promote offshore wind, focusing on fixed-bottom offshore wind this decade, on research and development of floating wind, on transmission solutions for large-scale development, and on advancing new technologies.
This decade, it plans to help reduce the cost of fixed-bottom offshore wind – from 2021 levels of $73/MWh to $51/MWh by 2030 – through promoting optimised wind turbine design and wind farm layout, the use of more powerful turbines, and reduced complexity in installation, operations and maintenance.
It plans to deploy similar tactics to help reduce the cost of floating offshore wind from today’s estimated $150/MWh to $45/MWh by 2035. The department also plans to aid development of serial manufacturing processes and new cable and substation concepts for deep-water, and standardisation of platform designs.
