Ten miles by water from our home on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts, you would think that the future of offshore wind is now.  New Bedford is the local home of Vineyard Wind, where massive components are loaded onto huge vessels to be assembled in the waters 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.  With my zoom on full extension, I took this photo of a wind turbine (some assembly required!) en route to the Vineyard Wind site.  This has become a familiar sight, and on January 2, the first of the planned 62 turbines began delivering clean energy to the grid.

I wrote an upbeat blog about these developments last June.  But more recently, in November of last year, ACOEL colleague and friend Jeff Porter wrote a thoughtful blog that focused on economic changes leading to the cancellation of major offshore wind projects in New Jersey and Massachusetts. 

So what happened?  The consensus is that the triple whammy of inflation, rising interest rates, and supply chain issues has delivered a major punch to the economic gut of the offshore wind industry.  As a consequence, the U.S. looks to be falling far short of President Biden’s target of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore power this decade. 

But there’s a common thread that runs through the three factors of inflation, interest rates, and supply chain bottlenecks:  they are all cyclical and, to some extent, transitory.  In the US, at least, inflation is cooling and interest rate cuts appear likely in 2024.  Will that be enough to help the ailing industry?

Moreover, other world powers are stepping up, with significant results.  China recently overtook Europe as the world’s largest producer of offshore wind power.  India, too, is ramping up production.  All of this should contribute to lower prices for wind generation.

And let’s step back from our U.S.-centric view for a minute.  If we’re talking – as we must – about global climate change, then the expansion of offshore wind generation by other nations is potentially very good news, even if development in the U.S. is lagging.

I doubt that anyone can predict, with confidence, how these global macro-economic trends will ultimately impact the future of offshore wind, but this much is clear:  the wind will keep blowing, so the potential is there.