MAREC Action Executive Director Evan Vaughan spoke at the annual Council of State Governments East (“CSG East”) on July 30th in Baltimore, Maryland. Evan’s panel discussed the offshore wind industry and he was joined by Lorig Charkoudian, Delegate, Maryland; Michael McHale, Business Manager, IBEW Local 24; and Dwarakesh Nallan, Director of Transmission and Interconnection, Equinor.
The photo taken above shows all four panelists at the session.
Each panel member answered three questions on offshore wind:
- Why is offshore wind necessary in the energy transition?
- What are the barriers to offshore wind?
- What are possible solutions to those barriers?
Evan’s answers to these questions focused on the following points. Offshore wind is needed to meet the growing electricity demand in PJM. And it is reliable with a high capacity factor. In fact, offshore winds are generally stronger than on land, and capacity factors are higher on average (expected to reach 60% by 2050 for new projects). However, challenges remain such as the lack of transmission infrastructure and the long permitting timelines, which cause delays and cost overruns to make project bids non-viable. Finally, Evan noted that new offshore wind costs should not be compared with the operational costs of thermal power plants because we are in an electricity growth period.
What are the solutions? Evan said states should incorporate flexibility into procurement policies to account for long permitting timelines and potential for supply chain disruption. States should also work on coordinated transmission to save consumers money and deploy transmission more quickly.
In addition to the panel discussion, Evan also was part of a tour of Sparrows Point (pictured above which includes in addition to Evan, Ryan Martini, Invenergy; Delegate Charkoudian; Senator Brooks; Delegate Simmons, Senate President Ferguson). Sparrows Point will produce the monopile foundations and other steel components for US Wind’s Maryland offshore wind projects MarWin and Momentum Wind.