FEDS TO FUND OCEAN WIND STUDY

U.S. Department of Energy to fund major Offshore Wind Grid Interconnection study; ABB, AWS Truepower, Duke Energy, NREL, University of Pittsburgh create provisional partnership to perform studies to identify sites for high offshore wind energy potential and grid interconnection along all U.S. coastal regions.
November 7, 2011 (ABB)

"The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)…[will provide] funding for a team of leading energy organizations to perform a broad study that will assess the most promising sites for high offshore wind production along all of the U.S. coastal regions. The ABB-led team will investigate important technical and economic questions about the integration of offshore wind energy through a range of transmission technologies.

"This DOE study – the 'National Offshore Wind Energy Grid Interconnection Study' – will be led by experts from five influential energy, manufacturing, consulting, utility and research organizations: ABB, AWS Truepower, Duke Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the University of Pittsburgh."

The study will detail the process of connecting these 2 maps. (click to enlarge)

"This team will determine the expected staging of offshore wind development in each of the coastal regions, develop expected wind generation production profiles, assess the applicability of integration study methods to offshore wind production, assess a variety of offshore wind collection and delivery technologies, and consider regulatory issues that may influence the selection of technologies or the implementation of systems.

"Additionally, the study will provide the technical and economic viability data necessary to produce a roadmap to the DOE’s ‘20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030’ wind goals for the U.S. This Offshore Wind initiative will help guide the national effort to achieve a 54 gigawatts (GW) of deployed offshore wind generating capacity by 2030…"