LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]




Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Mitsubishi eyes Great Lakes for offshore wind development 

Credit:  The case for wind turbines in the Great Lakes is getting stronger, according to Diamond Offshore Wind, a developer owned by Mitsubishi. | Karl-Erik Stromsta | Greentech Media | October 12, 2020 | www.greentechmedia.com ~~

Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. continues to explore the possibility of building an offshore wind project in Lake Erie to deliver power for New York state, as development zones off the Atlantic Coast remain in limited supply.

Diamond Offshore Wind, a unit of Mitsubishi Corp., stirred up local opposition last year after submitting an interconnection request with New York’s grid operator for potential capacity in eastern Lake Erie. The developer still believes offshore wind turbines are a good solution for the Great Lakes region as states seek more renewable power and clean energy jobs, CEO Chris Wissemann told GTM.

Diamond Offshore Wind was encouraged by a white paper from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority released this summer, looking at the state’s options for meeting its 70 percent renewable energy target for 2030. In the white paper (PDF), NYSERDA called for a feasibility study to “explore and confirm” the potential benefits of offshore wind in the Great Lakes.

At this stage, Diamond still does not have a specific project under development in Lake Erie. “We’re watching earnestly to see if New York, through this feasibility study, concludes that projects are worthwhile in the Great Lakes,” Wissemann said. “If so, and if that ultimately turns into a solicitation in the next year or two, we’d be keenly interested in participating.”

Great Lakes offshore: Long on potential, short on action

Offshore wind development has moved at a snail’s pace in the Great Lakes, despite longstanding interest and big potential. Much of the focus to date has been on the Icebreaker project offshore Cleveland, backed by the nonprofit Lake Erie Energy Development Corp.

Icebreaker has been under development for 11 years, and although it recently made progress in removing a “poison pill” attached to its approval by the Ohio Power Siting Board, the 20.7-megawatt demonstration project still lacks a clear path to commercial operation.

Wissemann said future Great Lakes projects will look more like those shaping up along the Atlantic Coast: larger and more competitive on cost. Winter ice endemic to the Great Lakes is not an engineering challenge for turbines affixed to the seabed, and there’s no need to demonstrate any particular technology for freshwater projects to advance, he said. “I think you can go bigger, faster in the Great Lakes.”

The Great Lakes are rimmed by a number of major cities, including Chicago (Lake Michigan) and, on the Canadian side, Toronto (Lake Ontario). New York’s second-largest city, Buffalo, sits along eastern Lake Erie.

Mitsubishi is a major player in the global offshore wind market, with investments in Europe, Japan, and as of this summer, the U.S. through its partial acquisition of the University of Maine’s floating demonstration project.

Diamond Offshore Wind is a subsidiary of Diamond Generating Corporation, a unit of Mitsubishi Corp. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, co-owner of offshore wind turbine supplier MHI Vestas, is a separate and independent company.*

Limited Atlantic sites may boost Great Lakes

Diamond’s interest in the Great Lakes stems from both opportunity and necessity. The last competitive auction for an offshore wind lease in federal waters was held nearly two years ago. While the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is considering future lease sales off New York, California and the Carolinas, it has not said exactly when the next auction will come.

That leaves a growing list of frustrated developers looking to invest in the market but without a clear way of securing a project. The map of existing leases is dominated by a handful of companies, including Ørsted, Iberdrola’s Avangrid and Royal Dutch Shell.

The lack of new zones in federal waters is also squeezing states, particularly New York, which has a 9-gigawatt offshore wind target for 2035. “If you add up the megawatts of capacity that states in the Northeast are seeking, those goals exceed the available BOEM leases,” Wissemann said.

BOEM does not oversee the Great Lakes, opening up the possibility that a state like New York could accelerate development even without BOEM’s participation. Just the same, the permitting route is challenging in the Great Lakes, as evidenced by Icebreaker’s tortuous history.

An offshore wind port in the Midwest?

The current scramble to secure offshore wind supply-chain investments along the Atlantic Coast may soon find its way to the Great Lakes, Wissemann said. In addition to New York, Illinois has shown a revived interest in offshore wind under Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker.

“I would liken it to the Northeast before Block Island was built,” Wissemann said. “People [in Great Lakes states] are just starting to think about it. If you fast-forward three years, you might find there gets to be a similar race for offshore wind.”

Offshore wind faces challenges in the Great Lakes compared to the Northeast, including water depths that drop off more rapidly, lower wind speeds and greater competition from cheaper onshore renewables than in land-constrained New England.

But the region has unique advantages. Many coal-fired plants have retired or will soon in the Midwest, opening up opportunities to plug offshore wind farms into existing grid infrastructure. There are no hurricanes or huge waves to worry about. And the region has plenty of available port infrastructure – much of it built for the steel industry – that could be converted for offshore wind.

“The Great Lakes has [potential offshore wind] ports that people could only envy on the East Coast,” Wissemann said.

“On the East Coast, most of the big ports got developed into something else. Those on the Great Lakes are pretty much sitting fallow.”

Correction: An earlier version of the story suggested Diamond Offshore Wind and MHI Vestas are part of the same company. They are completely separate and independent.

Source:  The case for wind turbines in the Great Lakes is getting stronger, according to Diamond Offshore Wind, a developer owned by Mitsubishi. | Karl-Erik Stromsta | Greentech Media | October 12, 2020 | www.greentechmedia.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon