from CFACT
David Wojcik
California has set a goal of 25,000 megawatts of floating offshore wind capacity. Of course, the cost is never mentioned, so here's a rough estimate to keep things moving.
The estimate begins with the massive Dominion Energy (DOM) stationary wind project currently under construction near Virginia. Because the supervised utility DOM is its own developer, we got some publicity, so here's a rough derivation. Large numbers are rounded for simplicity and ease of memory.
A. DOM said the 2,600-megawatt facility will cost $10 billion to build, or about $4 billion per gigawatt. But financing and profits raise that number to $20 billion or $8 billion per gigawatt, which is called the “revenue requirement” or the rate taxpayers will pay. We will use this number.
B. DOM boasts that they will not be affected by the huge cost increases sweeping the industry because their contracts predate the cost increases. Industry-wide costs are estimated to have increased by 65%. This brings the fixed base construction cost to US$6.6 billion/GW and the total cost to US$13.2 billion/GW.
C. Floating winds are often estimated to be three times the size of fixed winds because huge floating winds cost much more than a single monopile on which a fixed tower sits, and there are many moorings on the ocean floor. The water off California is about half a mile deep.
This brings the construction cost to approximately US$20 billion/GW and the total cost to US$40 billion/GW. It's probably more because it's never been done.
D. Therefore, 25 GW of floating capacity equates to $500 billion in construction costs and an incredible trillions in financing costs. Note that this does not include 20 years of expensive operations, maintenance, repairs, replacement and decommissioning costs. That makes it well over a trillion.
This is California’s trillion-dollar floating wind fantasy.
Now, let's translate this into possible power purchase agreement (PPA) prices. One trillion dollars paid out over 20 years equals $50,000,000,000 per year. Assuming a capacity factor of 40%, that works out to 57 cents per kWh. This is very expensive considering the average wholesale electricity price in California is only about 5 cents.
The starting electricity price of floating wind power is almost 12 times the normal electricity price. Even by California’s crazy standards, floating wind is a crazy policy.
This brings us to what is happening now. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Grid Deployment is seeking information and input on developing a West Coast offshore wind transmission plan. See https://www.energy.gov/gdo/west-coast-offshore-wind-transmission-planning
Here’s the basic announcement: “The West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission effort includes a request for information that allows individuals and organizations to submit written comments on transmission topics, including site selection, technical and policy considerations. The GDO team will consider this comment when preparing the West Coast recommendations.” Responses must be received by October 3, 2024, and can be emailed to OSWTransmission@hq.doe.gov.
The U.S. Department of Energy said the West Coast plan would be similar to the large-scale U.S. Atlantic Offshore Wind Development Action Plan. The action plan comes from the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is actually building the offshore wind monster. The plan is to create a massive undersea grid along the entire Atlantic coast.
The Atlantic Action Plan shows that the number of specific offshore wind projects is increasing in five-year increments, from 30,000 MW in 2030 to 85,000 MW in 2050. watt. That's a massive $3.4 trillion worth of floating wind energy, and the technology isn't even on a commercial scale.
I encourage people to comment and speak out against this horrible floating wind development effort. America doesn’t need trillions of dollars’ worth of unreliable power.
Relevant
