SEA Joins Panel in NECA Webinar, The State of Offshore Wind in New England & Beyond

The U.S. offshore wind industry may continue to face hurdles, but recent developments in the Northeast provide glimmers of hope. During the October 1 Northeast Energy and Commerce Association (NECA) webinar (recording available), industry experts applauded recent state efforts to get the industry back on track after a turbulent few years. The session, moderated by SEA’s Bob Grace, featured industry leaders Ben D’Antonio (Eversource Energy), Ken Kimmell (Avangrid), and Moira Cyphers (American Clean Power). Following a table-setting presentation by SEA’s Mary McMahon summarizing recent developments and the industry state of affairs, the panel discussion highlighted a range of takeaways, including:  

🌊 Offshore Wind’s Necessity: Panelists concurred that Northeast states cannot meet climate or reliability goals without offshore wind.

💸 Challenges to Bending the Cost Curve: In a landscape influenced by the competing challenges of wanting offshore wind built quickly, at lowest cost, while capturing local economic development benefits, and subject to global upward pressures on cost, the panel observed recent developments stabilizing rising cost, and emphasized flexibility, predictability and scale as keys to bring down the cost of offshore wind… as well as…  

🚧 Transmission & Interconnection: All participants bought into the benefits of proactive and coordinated transmission development—as Eversource emphasized, there’s no energy transition without transmission!  They also described the recent U.S. DOE award to derisk the construction of onshore interconnection points to accommodate offshore wind and lauded its promise to enable orderly offshore wind deployment.

🌍 A Floating Future: Looking forward the panelists observed that deeper offshore wind leases are necessary to fulfill state targets – opining that we might see floating offshore wind come online in the Gulf of Maine between the mid-2030s to 2040.

Since U.S. offshore wind sector’s inception in 2007, SEA has been a trusted partner. SEA provides cross-cutting advisory and analytical services, supporting clients through procurement development, responses, and analyses as well as cost and offtake opportunity assessments, market modeling, and much more. Need innovative strategic assistance? Want a demo of our innovative Simulator of Northeast Offshore Wind Buildout and LCOE (SNOWBaL) market model, our proprietary tool designed to fill a strategic analysis gap to nimbly explore competitive offshore wind dynamics and outcomes ? 

Contact us to request a demo or a consultation.