The Atlantic coast’s first floating offshore wind lease sale in the Gulf of Maine resulted in two provisional winners and $21.9 million in winning bids, with four lease areas awarded.
The first Atlantic floating offshore wind lease sale
The Biden-Harris administration announced that Avangrid Renewables and Invenergy NE Offshore Wind emerged as the winners after one round of bidding. Avangrid secured two leases for a total of $11.17 million – these areas encompass nearly 223,500 acres and are located around 29.5 nautical miles off the coast of Massachusetts. They can potentially deliver around 3 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy to the New England region.
Invenergy also obtained two lease areas, totaling just over 215,600 acres, with winning bids amounting to $10.78 million. One area is about 46 nautical miles from Maine, while the other is 21.6 nautical miles from Massachusetts. Together, these areas have the potential to supply renewable energy to more than 2.3 million homes.
Avangrid’s portfolio on the East Coast has now expanded significantly, with over 5 GW of offshore wind capacity planned – enough to power more than 2 million households. The company is involved in projects such as Vineyard Wind 1, New England Wind 1 and 2, and Kitty Hawk Wind South. With these new leases, Avangrid now holds the largest offshore wind development portfolio in the Northeast region.
As for getting those floating wind turbines out in the Atlantic, Avangrid asserts that it’s positioned to leverage the global expertise of its parent company, Iberdrola, which is pioneering floating offshore wind in Europe.
The Gulf of Maine wind lease sale is part of the Biden-Harris administration’s initiative to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035. Since taking office, the administration has approved 10 commercial offshore wind projects – starting from zero – that together could power more than 5 million homes. It has also conducted six offshore wind lease auctions, including the first-ever for the Pacific and Gulf Coasts.
Liz Burdock, CEO of Oceantic Network, stated: “Today’s successful auction demonstrates that offshore wind will continue to play a leading role in the Northeast’s energy future. These lease areas will deliver well-paying, local jobs, and drive significant investment in manufacturing facilities, ports, and transmission development. Despite the general uncertainty around the upcoming presidential election, this is a vote of confidence for an American industry that has already received nearly $3 billion of new supply chain investment in the first nine months of 2024.”
Electrek’s Take
When it comes to the bigger offshore wind picture, Electrekreported last month that the global wind turbine order intake reached new highs in the first half of 2024, with 91.2 GW of activity, a 23% increase year-over-year, thanks to the Asia-Pacific region, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie.
Global onshore wind order intake activity increased in the first half of 2024, but the offshore sector struggled, with order intake decreasing 38% year-over-year through the first half (-4.1 GW), as challenging project economics have curbed the market.
Luke Lewandowski, vice president, global renewables research at Wood Mackenzie, noted that “the offshore market has almost 30 GW of conditional orders globally, 21 GW of which are for projects in Europe and the US, but challenging economics continue to delay conversion into firm orders.”
So today’s auction announcement is historic – putting floating offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine was only a concept four years ago. However, only four of the eight areas attracted high bids, which isn’t surprising considering the current challenges facing US offshore wind and the tight election, with one candidate threatening to undermine the industry.
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On today’s episode of Quick Charge, I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I’d like to remind them that, as a trusted media personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves cobalt mines.
We’ve also got the world’s quickest police pursuit vehicle, an Amnesty International report highlighting Tesla and Mercedes’ efforts to improve worker conditions in the Congo, and an exploration of Trump voters’ love for solar power.
Today’s episode is sponsored by BLUETTI, a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems. For a limited time, save up to 50% during BLUETTI’s exclusive Black Friday pre-sale, now through November 11. Learn more by clicking here.
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Donald Trump will push fossil fuels and undo renewable energy policies, but it ultimately won’t stop clean energy’s momentum.
Trump has always pushed for more oil drilling and fewer regulations, left the Paris Agreement in his first term as president, says he hates “windmills,” promised to scrap offshore wind on “day one” if he won the 2024 election, and calls climate change a “scam.” And now that he’s won, this is a direct threat to the US’s pledge to reach net zero by 2050. After all, federal policy directly impacts the pace of renewable energy growth, especially when it comes to incentives and research funding.
The Biden administration’s groundbreaking Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has spurred a clean energy boom, will be challenged under Trump. Because Republican states have received 80% of the IRA’s money with which they’ve built factories and created thousands of jobs, a complete IRA repeal is unlikely. What’s more probable is that the Republicans phase out tax credits earlier than planned or cap overall funding.
Federal financial support for innovative technologies and projects could also take a hit. Brendan Bell, COO of Aligned Climate Capital, who formerly led the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, told Electrek:
My partner Peter and I led the DOE Loan Program Office under President Obama. We supported the first utility-scale solar and storage projects, as well as early EV investments – including the first loan to Tesla.
Today, these technologies are commercialized and are propelling the clean energy transition. None of it would have been possible if these programs had been cut off 10 years ago.
Put simply, Trump can’t turn back the tide of clean energy – but he could delay tomorrow’s solutions and the birth of new industries.
BloombergNEF’s “2H 2024 US Clean Energy Market Outlook,” released at the end of October, examined the worst-case scenario, where control of both the Senate and the House leads to a full repeal of the IRA tax credits:
The wind, solar, and energy storage sectors jointly see a 17% drop in total new capacity additions over 2025-2035, with 927 gigawatts (GW) of cumulative build compared to 1,118GW in BNEF’s base case forecast. Wind sees the greatest fall in activity in this scenario with a 35% drop, followed by energy storage at 15% and solar at 13% relative to BNEF’s base case.
That’s a blow we can’t afford at a time when we need to reduce emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 to avoid climate disasters becoming even worse than they already are.
But all is not lost. The clean energy market isn’t solely driven by federal policy. Over the last decade, solar, wind, and EVs have become more cost-competitive and popular. State policies play a huge role too, and many states are committed to their own clean energy goals regardless of who sits in the White House. States like California, New York, and Washington have ambitious targets to combat climate change, and deep red Texas is No. 1 in the US for both solar and wind.
Corporations are also key players. Companies like Amazon, Google, and Walmart have committed to going 100% renewable, and they’re not about to reverse course. This demand keeps the market for renewables strong. Plus, there’s significant public support for clean energy jobs, and renewables create more employment opportunities than fossil fuels in many regions of the country.
JD Dillon, chief marketing officer of California-based solar tech manufacturer Tigo Energy (Nasdaq: TYGO), said to Electrek, “The march toward renewable clean energy is both inevitable and the right thing to do. In a perfect world, we would eliminate partisanship from the renewable energy conversation because everyone benefits from a cleaner environment and affordable energy. Unfortunately, none of us live in said perfect world.”
The US clean energy sector may slow down, but it’s hard to stop a train that has already left the station. What consequences this slower-moving train will have for the US and the world remains to be seen.
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The world’s largest EV battery maker is advancing a new type of battery, promising higher energy density. According to a new local report, CATL is investing heavily while ramping up its workforce to bring all-solid-state EV batteries to market.
With trial production reportedly kicking off, we could see CATL launch all-solid-state EV batteries sooner than expected.
According to a new local report from LatePost (via CnEVPost), CATL has entered the trial production phase of 20 Ah samples. The news comes after the EV battery giant added over 1,000 workers to its R&D team this year.
The report claimed that CATL is now focused on the final Sulfide phase and has already commenced trial production of 20 Ah samples.
The company’s solution has an energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg for lithium ternary batteries, 40% more than current batteries. However, the report said charging speed and cycle life are not quite where they need to be.
At 20 Ah, the battery solution is finalized and ready for its next stage, production tech exploration.
CATL is advancing all-solid-state EV batteries
The report says after that it’s mainly manufacturing hurdles, that can be overcome with a bigger workforce.
In April, CATL’s chief scientist, Wu Kai, announced that the company had developed a verification platform for 10 Ah all-solid-state EV battery cells. Wu also said CATL aimed to produce all-solid-state EV batteries in small volumes in 2027, the first time the news was made public.
In September, the company’s chairman, Robin Zeng, said CATL’s research into the new battery tech was “second to none.”
Several companies, including Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and others, are betting on solid-state EV batteries as the future.
According to data from CnEVPost, CATL is dominating the global EV battery market with a 36.7% share through September 2024.
China’s BYD is second with a 16.4% share of the market. BYD is also planning to launch solid-state batteries. At the September 2024 World New Energy Congress, BYD’s head scientist and engineer, Lian Yubo, said solid-state EV batteries could be widely used in five years.
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