VIDEO: "Things are about to change in a big way" for U.S. Offshore Wind
In a recent interview with Maritime Reporter TV, Philip Lewis, Director of Research, Intelatus Global Partners, breaks down the U.S. Offshore Wind market 'By the Numbers.'
Let's look at the world . There's around 75GW of offshore wind farms, either operational or being built in the world today. By comparison, the U.S. currently has 42MW of operational offshore wind farms, and there's one wind farm for 800MW that's finally under construction.
But things are, in our view, really about to change in quite a big way.
- One more wind farm will start construction work this quarter,
- We've got 11 offshore continental shelf projects under final federal permitting review,
- There's 17.5GW of project capacity has secured commitments from states. That means they've got power purchase commitments, and;
- There is 16.5GW of federal offshore leasing is underway for new project capacity.
Now, all of this is detailed in our new report, and we forecast in the report more than 46 projects that will install 43GW of capacity. That's compared to that global 75GW, so that brings the U.S. from a small player to a major player in the offshore wind segment very quickly.
Those first 43 projects will require about $135 billion of CapEx -- quite a substantial investment -- and close to $4.5 billion of annual OpEx once they've been delivered.