20% of eastern energy to come from wind by 2024

America Wind Energy

Wind power could meet 20 percent or more of electricity demand in the eastern United States by 2024, if the effort includes sufficient planning and billions in spending for transmission lines and other needs, a government study has concluded.

The Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy worked together on the report that highlighted the potential for thousands of wind farms across the East, this includes more than 4,400 megawatts worth of wind turbine capacity off the coast of Delaware, and even greater supplies from Maryland, New Jersey and other shoreline states.

"Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal, but this study shows that there are multiple scenarios through which it can be achieved," David Corbus, project manager for the laboratory, said in a written statement.

"Whether we're talking about using land-based wind in the Midwest, offshore wind in the East or any combination of wind power resources, any plausible scenario requires transmission infrastructure upgrades and we need to start planning for that immediately," he added.

"Very rich renewable energy resource"

Two years ago the first US offshore wind power purchase agreement was signed between Bluewater Wind (now owned by NRG) and Delmarva Power. The deal will run for 25 years and assumes at least 79 wind turbines capable of powering 55,000 homes, but there is a potential for this capacity to be increased.

"Delaware happens to have a very rich renewable energy resource in the form of its offshore wind," Tolman said.

He also highlighted the necessity of making the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources "as rapidly as possible". The need is particularly urgent is places such as Delaware where its location makes it far more vulnerable to climate change and rising sea levels.

Wind power has experienced a soar in popularity as a result of increasing climate change awareness, and whereas the technology is not free of critics once constructed the turbines are zero-carbon-emitters.

Aggressive offshore developments

So far the US has 30,000MW of wind energy installed, but pushing to 20 percent of eastern electricity needs "is unlikely to be realized with a business-as-usual approach," the report said.

Aggressive offshore developments would be needed to meet the target of producing 20 percent of the East's power via wind energy and would require 231,000MW, including about 79,000MW in the PJM electricity grid.

One thing that must be done in order for the ambitious target to be hit is updating the antiquated US national grid, currently incapable of harnessing large amounts of power from renewable sources. Without those new lines in the East, transmission bottlenecks would force "substantial" shutdowns of some wind generation.

The much anticipated smart grid cannot come soon enough.

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