August 16, 2024 — As President Joe Biden’s presidential term comes to a close, the administration is bearing down on its goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.
As of 2021, the administration had approved two commercial-scale offshore wind projects, and seven have been approved within the past year.
As of 2023, only seven offshore wind turbines were providing power to American homes, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This year has seen the addition of the 12-turbine South Fork Wind farm off the coast of New York and initial operations from Vineyard Wind 1 off the coast of Massachusetts.
Ten turbines delivered power to the grid until a test turbine broke and shed pieces of a 115,000-pound, 350-foot wind blade into the sea. Power generation and blade installation have been halted as debris continues to wash up on the shores of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
It’s been a busy summer for Virginia’s largest utility, Dominion Energy. This week, it announced the installation of the 50th monopile, or turbine foundation, of the long-anticipated Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project and the purchase of another 176,500-acre lease area east of the project.