Trump's anti-offshore wind ire leading US states to look north for Atlantic Canada clean power
Massachusetts is among the American states exploring sourcing electricity from planned offshore wind farms in Atlantic Canada, following the US market-stalling moratorium imposed on the industry by the Trump administration earlier this year.
The state, home to the pioneering 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind 1 project brought online last year, is one of six in the US Northeast aiming to shift to renewable energy-based power grids before 2040.
But a representative from the Massachusetts energy department suggested they were being forced to rethink options for reaching a targeted 5,600 MW of offshore wind power this decade since Donald Trump — who has long been a vociferous opponent of ' windmills ' — made good on a threat to halt a number of multi-billion dollar projects on ' day one ' of his second presidency.
Maria Hardiman, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, told Canada's National Observer her department was now in 'regular communication' around developing 'new energy sources,' including Canadian offshore wind that would allow it to lower electricity costs and boost energy independence in the state and the wider US Northeast.
'Building on our efforts to connect our regions through transmission, there are significant opportunities to construct new onshore and offshore wind projects across Canada and the [North American] northeast,' she said.
'We will continue to explore these partnerships to bring down energy bills and bolster the energy independence of our region.'
Industry insiders say other states in the region, led by New York, are investigating tapping projects off the province of Nova Scotia, which is set for a first leasing of construction sites later this year.
"These US Northeast states' options to meet their clean energy targets with onshore renewables are quite limited. So for this reason, large-scale Canadian offshore wind could come into the picture," says Aegir Insights' Signe Sorensen
Yet, Massachusetts was the only state that would specifically comment on whether it was looking to source Canadian offshore wind power, when approached by Canada's National Observer.
A spokesperson for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), a public-benefit corporation that handles power procurement for the state — which has a nation-leading target of bringing 9,000 MW of offshore wind onto its grid by 2035 — said it 'continues to be focused on advancing the offshore wind industry in the US.'
'We applaud Canada for growing its offshore wind industry which will help to spur additional innovation and support expansion in the North American market,' NYSERDA spokesperson Deanna Cohen told Canada's National Observer.
States keeping projects low-profile
Industry observers suggest many states have opted to progress projects in 'relative silence,' hoping that keeping a low profile will save their developments from Trump's anti-offshore wind ire.
However, several market analysts believe Trump's pullback on what had been a steadily-maturing US offshore wind sector will mean there is a 'golden opportunity' for Canada to deliver power to key markets south of the border.
'The US, which was expected to become one of the world's main [offshore wind] markets, is now going in completely the opposite direction for political reasons,' said Signe Sørensen, an analyst with Danish offshore wind consultancy Aegir Insights. 'This could matter a lot to Canada.'
The New England states have been 'spearheading the US build-out, procuring lots of offshore wind' as part of former US President Joe Biden's objective of adding 30,000 MW of production by 2030, she said. 'Delays to construction now will have ramifications far beyond Trump's term.
'These states' options to meet their clean energy targets with onshore renewables are quite limited,' said Sørensen. 'So for this reason, large-scale Canadian offshore wind could come into the picture.'
John Dalton, president of Power Advisory, a US power sector consulting firm, told Canada's National Observer there was 'definitely a case' for future offshore wind production from Atlantic Canada being exported to New England.
'The Trump administration has largely derailed the realization of the [US Northeast's] electricity market's clean energy and offshore wind goals,' he said. 'States will be pivoting to other resources … with policymakers very focused on securing low [electricity] costs.'
Nova Scotia offshore wind price 'very favourable'
A price check between power purchase agreements finalized by US states with developers for wind farms now being built off the US — including the multi-billion-dollar Empire Wind 1 and Sunrise Wind off New York and Revolution Wind off Rhode Island, which would together power well over 1 million American homes — and a number of the proposed projects off Nova Scotia compares 'very favourably' the Canadian sector.
'The economics of Nova Scotian offshore wind would certainly be competitive with these and future US offshore wind projects,' said Sørensen, though she declined to provide hard 'levelized cost of energy' figures – the industry benchmark metric for the cost of a project over its lifetime compared to the revenue generated by purchase power agreements, citing commercial confidentiality.
Aegir CEO Scott Urquhart noted: 'Nova Scotia has a huge area of shallow water that could house tens of gigawatts [tens of thousands of megawatts] with excellent economics. Looking at distance to markets, interconnections to the US are not a crazy idea — they've been doing similar distances off Europe for years.'
Given the historically high electricity prices in the US Northeast and the fast-rising power demand forecast, Aegir calculations suggest Nova Scotian offshore wind supply could fit well with states' pursuits of a strategy led by greater diversification of clean energy sources.
Atlantic Canada's rich wind resource
Winds rush along the coastlines of Canada's Maritime provinces at speeds similar to those off Northern Europe — at roughly 40 km/h — where offshore wind farms have been generating power to the grid for more than 30 years and have led to the development of a sector employing over 300,000 people.
Canada's Atlantic Economic Council said last year that offshore wind off Nova Scotia could become a $7-billion market by 2030, creating an initial 5,000 jobs amid other benefits for regional economies. Nova Scotia is set to hold its first auction, where waters would be leased to developers to harness a first 5,000 megawatts (MW) of energy, before the end of 2025. The Global Wind Energy Council, an industry body, said in its most recent annual report Canada could add a first 1,000 MW by 2034.
But under the aegis of making Canada an 'energy superpower,' Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has pitched a 40,000 MW project called Wind West as a means of meeting 27 per cent of the country's total energy demand. Multi-billion-dollar visions of a massive offshore wind-powered transmission trunkline running along North America's Atlantic coastline are not new. Several long-distance power transmission projects have been considered over the past decade, including the high-profile Atlantic Wind Connection backed by Google, Swiss green-energy private-equity house Good Energies, Japanese industrial conglomerate Marubeni, and Belgian transmission system operator Elia.
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