Secretary Deb Haaland of the U.S. Interior Department announced plans Oct. 13 to hold new offshore wind lease sales, expanding development as the industry braces to build platforms in deeper waters.

"This timetable provides two crucial ingredients for success: increased certainty and transparency," Haaland said during a speech at the American Clean Power Association's offshore wind power conference in Boston. "Together, we will meet our clean energy goals while addressing the needs of other ocean users and potentially impacted communities."

The effort is part of President Joe Biden's push for the U.S. to develop 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030. Many have cast skepticism on that goal, which depends on how quickly the nation can build a supply chain.

Reuters on Oct. 14 released a report compiled by Lium, a market research firm, that expressed more confidence, saying the supply chain buildup presents a $200 billion investment opportunity through 2035. The report called Biden's goal "attainable," with 30 projects and project phases underway on the East Coast that amount to 25 GW of power slated for commercial operations by 2030. West Coast states "could easily" see 5 GW or more of offshore wind power by 2030, the report said.

The Biden administration said in an Oct. 13 announcement that it would "potentially" hold up to seven new offshore lease sales by 2025 in the Gulf of Maine, New York Bight, Central Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, in addition to waters offshore the Carolinas, California and Oregon.

According to the administration's estimates, lease sales will take place for the New York Bight in the first quarter of 2022, Carolina Long Bay by May 2022, Northern and Central California in November 2021 and September 2022, the Gulf of Mexico by late 2022, the Central Atlantic by the second quarter of 2023, Oregon by the third quarter of 2023 and the Gulf of Maine in 2024.

The administration is reviewing nine additional construction and operations plans, with a target to complete reviews of another six such plans by 2025. That would represent 16 project reviews representing more than 19 GW, the administration said.

"We are working to facilitate a pipeline of projects that will establish confidence for the offshore wind industry," Amanda Lefton, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in the announcement.

Industry sizes up offshore challenges

The industry must commercialize nascent floating offshore wind technology that has not yet been developed at scale.

Globally, the pipeline for floating offshore wind energy more than tripled in 2020, with 26,529 MW under development, according to an August report by the U.S. Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL. Researchers at NREL predicted the levelized cost of energy for floating offshore wind technology will decline to $60-$105/MWh in 2030 from $160/MWh in 2020.

There are 11 floating offshore wind energy projects installed across the word, representing 79 MW of capacity, NREL said. The largest of them is Equinor ASA's 30-MW Hywind Scotland Pilot Park in the U.K.

In the U.S., the coasts of California, Oregon, Hawaii and Maine will likely require the use of floating offshore wind platforms because the water is deeper. The office of Maine Gov. Janet Mills in early October said the state applied for rights to lease an ocean energy area for the development of what would be the first floating project in the U.S., the 11-MW New England Aqua Ventus I Offshore Project (Maine Aqua Ventus I). The demonstration project is a collaboration between the University of Maine and New England Aqua Ventus LLC, a joint venture of RWE AG and Mitsubishi Corp.

JB Financial Group Co. Ltd."Floating wind will face additional challenges, as no U.S. ports currently exist that can support a commercial-scale floating wind project," the NREL report said.

Walt Musial, a principal engineer and offshore wind platform lead at NREL, said in an interview that wind turbine manufacturers have shied away from supplying floating offshore projects for the past decade. Now the stigma about floating offshore wind has passed as more demonstration projects launch, Musial said.

"In the future, I think our assumption is a that floating commercial wind farm will be the same size as a commercial fixed-bottom wind farm," Musial said. "And the economics are really driven by turbine size."

Equinor's floating wind farm in Scotland uses 9.5-MW turbines manufactured by Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Musial said. Musial added that the potential for floating projects could accelerate if more oil companies repurpose ocean-based rigs.

TotalEnergies SE, the French oil and gas company, and Simply Blue Group, an Ireland developer of floating offshore wind technologies, on Oct. 13 announced a joint venture to tap into the "vast potential for floating offshore wind projects in the United States."

"There are no immediate opportunities to lease," said Kevin Banister, chief development officer of Simply Blue Group and president of the joint venture, which is based in Portland, Ore. "We're preparing for the future, and we're building opportunities for floating [projects] on both coasts."

"The U.S. is probably the most important burgeoning offshore wind market," Banister added. "Neither of our companies is interested in promoting a particular technology, except for the fact that we think floating wind is going to enable massive growth here in the U.S."