The news last week was disappointing, but the offshore wind industry has shown their commitment to meeting the goals that New York State has set forth in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. In March alone, we saw the first utility-scale offshore wind farm become fully operational (South Fork Wind Farm), NYSERDA completed its rapid rebid to award Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind provisional contracts, Equinor signed a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the Building & Construction Trades Council of Great New York and Vicinity for the construction and revitalization of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, and Orsted received their Record of Determination from the BOEM.

Announced on March 29, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) released its Offshore Wind Strategy. This document offers a first-of-its-kind comprehensive summary of the Department’s efforts to meet President Biden’s offshore wind goals: the deployment of 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030, followed by a 110 GW goal by 2050.

Recent whale strandings and deaths off the Atlantic coast have led to questions about possible connections to offshore wind energy development. To address these concerns and dispel the profound misinformation in certain media outlets, the New York Offshore Wind Alliance (NYOWA), Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment (CCE) and the New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV) hosted Whale Tales and Whale Facts…

Embedded among the hundreds of policy proposals unveiled in her 2022 State of the State address, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that her administration would henceforth incentivize the conversion of the state’s aging fleet of fossil-fired generating plants to serve its push for clean and renewable resources.

The September 15 OSW Developers Meet and Greet Networking Forum, hosted more than 80 civic leaders on Long Island to hear from offshore wind project developers on their aspirations to meet New York’s nation-leading goal of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.

Empire Wind and the Wildlife Conservation Society announced the extension to 2028 of their historic agreement to monitor large whales in the lease area of Empire Wind, an offshore wind project located off the southern coast of Long Island.

Sheringham Shoal Windfarm photo provided by Equinor

On July 27, 2022, New York State released its third solicitation for offshore wind projects. The procurement is for at least 2 gigawatts enough to power 1.5 million homes and includes the first phase of the $500M public investment in offshore wind ports, manufacturing, and supply chain infrastructure development. Under this solicitation, NYSERDA has retained the discretion to procure all the capacity remaining towards the 9 GW target for OSW as set by the New York’s landmark Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

This June, I had the privilege of joining a delegation of U.S representatives to Germany, at the invitation of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and organized by the German Renewable Academy, for a dialogue on our shared interest in the global development of offshore wind.