Biden Administration Makes Plans for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines on the Coast of California

President Joe Biden’s administration plans to deploy 30GW of offshore wind by 2030, and the first steps towards achieving this were made when the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense made an agreement with California.

A report, published by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), says that the cost of floating wind across California is expected to go down by 2032.

According to Utility Dive, there are more than 7 GW of floating turbines being developed globally. The first ones are expected to be in use in 2024.

"We ... also in anticipation of this announcement, have put tens of millions of dollars in our budget to accelerate the environmental review process, to focus on our design build efforts, and to focusing our engineering efforts, upgrade our ports, to focus on our capacity, on transmission and distribution," Gov. Gavin Newsom, D.

Multiple companies are interested in offshore wind development in the Central Coast of Morro Bay, and in the area close to the Oregon border off of Humboldt County.

While the West Coast is behind the East Coast in terms of offshore wind markets, they can use the lessons learned in the Northeast.

Offshore wind development will not only help the transition away from nuclear power, but will help Biden’s administration reach the goal of decarbonizing the electricity sector by 2035.