What’s the Future of Offshore Wind in the US?

This week we go on a deep dive on offshore wind in the US--what's
the status of projects that have been approved? Why do approvals
for new sites seem to be slowing down? Is there enough
manufacturing capacity to meet the transition goals? What can be
done to boost wind energy growth? Sign up now for Uptime Tech News,
our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode
is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about
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https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: All right, Joel, it's baseball season, and it's actually
playoff baseball season. Did you have a bunch of money on the
Brewers already? Joel Saxum: I don't bet on my own teams, but I
love them. And my heart got ripped out of my chest last night
watching that damn game. Because it was, if you didn't follow, it
was 0 0 going into the seventh. We hit two back to back home runs,
and the Brewers, everybody in Wisconsin was riding high, and then
we had four runs rung up on us in the ninth. So there goes our
playoff run. And I was looking forward to being able to josh back
and forth with our weather guard, lightning tech COO about her
Philly fanatic fandom. But we won't get to see them in the
playoffs. Allen Hall: Well, it is fall in America, and that's when
the baseball playoffs start and college football kicks off. So
everything, food wise, changes. The pumpkin spice is out, Joel. Not
a fan. God, please. No one's a fan of pumpkin spice? Pumpkin spice
French toast, I'm a fan of, but that's the only thing. That's not
bad. What about squash and cranberries? I mean, you gotta like one
of those. Philip Totaro: Cranberry, I'll take cranberries. Joel
Saxum: Cranberries up from northern Wisconsin, right? I grew up
next to a cranberry bog. Allen Hall: Alright, this is something
everybody can agree upon. Maple syrup. Two cheers for maple syrup.
Sure, why not. Joel Saxum: You're from northern New York, Phil!
They do maples. There's that syrup country. Sure. But I'm also not
12 years old eating a stack of pancakes anymore. Allen Hall:
Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Alan
Hall, and I'll be joined by my Uptime co host. After these news
headlines, in a bold move, Spain's Acciona Energy has unveiled
plans for a massive 3 gigawatt wind farm in Western Australia. The
project, named Bellwether, aims to install 400 turbines, each with
a capacity of 6. 2 megawatts. Once operational, it could become the
largest onshore wind farm outside of China, significantly boosting
Australia's renewable energy capacity. Shifting to technology
advancements, Weidmüller USA has introduced BoltControl, an
innovative monitoring system for wind turbine blades. This system
detects broken bolts in the blade root, potentially preventing
costly damage and reducing downtime. The technology promises to
enhance safety and efficiency in wind farm operations. In South
Korea, Unison has achieved a milestone by developing the country's
largest offshore wind turbine. The 10 megawatt direct drive turbine
represents a significant leap in Korea's wind energy capabilities.
For Unison plans to begin performance tests in October of this
year, with commercialization expected by early 2026. GE Vernova has
secured five new agreements in Spain, further solidifying its
presence in the European wind market. The company will supply a
total of 16 turbines for wind farms in Castilla, León, each with a
capacity of 6. 1 megawatts. Additionally, GE Vernova will repower a
wind farm in Catalonia and supply turbines for a new project in
Andalusia. Lastly, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has
postponed the Oregon Offshore Wind Energy Auction. Due to
insufficient bidder interest, this delay highlights the challenges
facing offshore wind development in certain regions. BOEM plans to
continue collaborating with stakeholders to support ongoing
engagement processes and develop a strategic roadmap for offshore
wind in Oregon. That's this week's top news stories. After the
break, I'll be joined by my co host, CEO and founder of IntelStore,
Phil Totaro, And the Chief Commercial Officer of Weather Guard,
Joel Sexson. Dealing with damaged blades? Don't let slower pairs
keep your turbines down. Blade platforms get you back up and
running fast. Blade Platform's truck mounted platforms reach up to
100 meters, allowing for a quick setup, improved safety, and
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difference in blade access, speed, and efficiency. Visit
BladePlatforms. com and get started today. Well, as offshore wind
is really slowing down on the West Coast, particularly in Oregon,
there's been a number of changes on the East Coast around New York.
Massachusetts Rhode Island where the ownership is changing hands
pretty rapidly. And some projects have been kicked down the road a
little bit to allow the developers to get everything in, in, in
place before. They start pounding monopiles in the ocean bottom.
But there, Phil, there's been a number of more financial
transactions than there has been putting monopiles in. A lot of
financial companies have entered into the marketplace. A lot of
power companies, state owned power companies for essentially are
pulling out of offshore wind. That has changed the dynamic quite a
bit. And you're getting more outside players, non U. S. players
into the U. S. offshore market. What is the, sort of, the current
status of that? And Joel, sort of, what does that look like in
terms of growth? Is it really going to stagnate? Or what do you see
out in the In the ocean there from all the ship activity. Joel
Saxum: Well, I know like, Alan, you and I we kind of regularly
watch that marine traffic. com. I, and I every couple of weeks I'm
flipping up looking at like the TGS or foresee offshore maps and
just kind of peeking around what's happening. But we know right
now, of course, Block Island, steel in the water. She's been there
for a while. That one's always going to be there and running. But
as far as all these other wind farms we've been talking about for
the last few years, active steel in the water, we have Vineyard
Wind, which is Avangrid, right? And we also have South Fork, which
is Orsted. And these are off the coast of Massachusetts. Rhode
Island here, but South Fork is small, right? Like Block Island,
it's like five turbines. South Fork, I think there's a dozen
turbines there in the water. Vineyard Wind, of course, a little bit
bigger, but they had, the blade issues. So they slowed down and
they paused on that one. And outside of those wind farms, as far as
I know, the only other one that has steel in the water is the CVOW,
the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind. Down off the coast of Virginia.
So Phil, am I right or wrong there? Those are the only ones with
steel in the water. Philip Totaro: Yeah. The, so there's some kind
of early stage development activity still happening for a lot of
the stuff that's obviously not gone through tendering yet, the
stuff that has gone through Boehm. Consent is not quite as much as,
everyone has hoped and to go back to the beginning of this Alan
mentioned that, Oregon's not really moving forward which is
unfortunate, but it's just reflective of the times. So we're,
whereas we were going through. A phase where we were having a lot
of auctions. Now, BOEM is kind of slowing down the process of
having these auctions and trying to take the projects that are,
quote unquote shovel ready and getting them, approved as much as
they can. That said, there, there is still kind of a need and an
opportunity for offshore wind and his interest rates will hopefully
continue to come down. It opens the door for a more profitable
project where, if you remember back, what, three years ago, even,
we had projects with PPAs that were being executed for like 77,
hour. That's relatively competitive with, some of the legacy
onshore wind or solar projects in some of these same states where
we would be doing the offshore wind offtake. So. Offshore wind will
make some sense moving forward. It's really not going quite as
quick as we would like, of course. But it looks like BOEM has at
this point shifted their approach from doing more auctions to doing
more consents and approvals of projects that have already been
tendered. Presumably to get the ball rolling on BOEM. Once this
project's been approved by everybody, including the government,
makes it a lot harder to be undone by any kind of future regime
change in, the presidency and whoever's in control of Boehm. Joel
Saxum: So, Phil, one of the things that we talked about this slow
down, not going as fast as we wanted to these things. One of the
positive things that I'm actually hearing from, my connections
within the WIM network is that it's allowing the ISPs a little bit
of time to catch up. So we're allow, we're being able to get more
people trained. There's been some, some shifting, some gears and
people working offshore and some things going on. We've launched
our first SOV, our first Jones Act compliant SOV. There's another,
I think there's another two of those being built right now in
different places around the country, but it's giving, we went
really hard and fast at it and there was all these kinds of issues
and now we're backing off, slowing down a little bit. And like the
pendulum has kind of swung the other way. It seems like the from a
supply chain standpoint, and maybe not a supply chain as far as
hardware, but a supply chain as far as services and those kinds of
things. As a unit,