Offshore Wind Research and Development

More About Offshore Wind Research and Development

Floating Offshore Wind Research

Market Acceleration

R&D Consortium

The U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) funds research nationwide to enable the development and deployment of offshore wind technologies that can capture wind resources off the coasts of the United States and convert that wind into electricity. This robust portfolio of research, development, and demonstration projects will help the industry overcome key barriers to offshore wind development, including the relatively high cost of energy, the mitigation of environmental impacts, the technical challenges of project installation, and grid interconnection.

Offshore wind resources are abundant, strong, and consistent. Data on the technical resource potential suggest there are more than 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, or 13,500 terawatt hours (TWh) of generation, per year in federal waters of the United States and the Great Lakes. While not all of this resource potential will realistically be developed, the magnitude—approximately 3 times the annual electricity consumption in the United States—represents a substantial opportunity to generate electricity near coastal, high-density population centers.

The federal government has an ambitious goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of new offshore wind energy by 2030, which would support 77,000 jobs, power 10 million homes, and cut 78 million metric tons in carbon emissions. As part of that strategy, the Department of Energy has allocated over $300 million for competitively-selected offshore wind research, development, and demonstration projects.

 

Floating Offshore Wind Research

WETO has funded research that explored floating offshore wind design, development, and manufacturing in the United States. The research addressed key technical challenges while creating jobs and economic opportunities for U.S. communities.

Market Acceleration

WETO funds research to accelerate the development of offshore wind energy. This includes the deployment of offshore wind power and its integration into the nation's grid. This work can include facilitating the sharing of ocean space with other uses, limiting impacts on the offshore environment, and assessing the feasibility of wind plant construction by studying the nation's available ports, vessels, and supply chain infrastructure.

National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium

WETO is supporting a $41 million national offshore wind R&D consortium to address near-term needs for the development of the U.S. offshore wind industry through wind plant technology advancement, wind resource and physical site characterization, and installation, operations and maintenance, and supply chain technology solutions. In 2018, DOE competitively selected the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority as administrator of the consortium.

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