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Today’s lease auction actually went kinda well.
Just days before what is sure to be a close presidential election in which one of the candidates has promised to shut down the offshore wind industry “on day one,” an auction for the rights to develop wind energy projects in the Gulf of Maine on Tuesday was a surprise success.
Two developers, Avangrid and Invenergy, purchased four of the eight leases that were up for sale. If turned into wind farms, they have the potential to generate about 6.8 gigawatts, or enough electricity to power about 2.3 million homes, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Compared with the optimism on display just two years ago, when more than a dozen companies competed in a three-day bidding war for the right to develop six areas off the coast of New York and New Jersey, Tuesday’s sale was a flop. Just two companies participated. The bidding closed after one round. The leases sold for a flat $50 per acre, compared to an average of nearly $9,000 per acre in the New York sale.
But put in context of how things are going in 2024, it’s a miracle anyone showed up at all. The offshore wind industry has been struggling with supply chain issues and inflation, not to mention increasing opposition from coastal communities. Just a month ago, an offshore wind lease sale off the coast of Oregon was canceled after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management learned that there was only one interested party. The agency also canceled an auction for the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year citing a lack of interest.
“It’ll be a win if anything gets leased,” Francis Eanes, executive director of the Maine Labor Climate Council, told me Tuesday morning before the results came in. “And honestly, it won’t be surprising if it doesn’t.”
Outside of the existential threat of a Trump presidency, developing wind projects in the Gulf of Maine was already a challenging prospect. The water is upwards of 200 meters deep — too deep to affix the foundation of a wind turbine to the seafloor. Instead, developers will need to build floating structures that are moored to the seabed with giant cables. Floating offshore wind is a proven technology — there are a handful of projects already operating around the world. But it is more expensive to build, and there are none yet operating in the U.S. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that floating offshore wind farms will have a levelized cost of energy that’s at least 40% higher than fixed-bottom projects.
On top of that, just days ago, the U.S. Department of Energy rejected Maine’s application for a $456 million grant to build a floating offshore wind assembly port on Sears Island, a protected area in Penobscot Bay about the size of New York City’s Central Park. A new port is a necessary prerequisite for developing projects in the Gulf of Maine, as floating offshore wind assembly requires different infrastructure than fixed-bottom projects.
Nonetheless, Tyler Hansen, a research associate studying offshore wind at Dartmouth College, told me he thought the results of the auction “make sense” when weighing the prospects for the technology against the political risks. He expects the cost of floating offshore wind to come down as governments around the world invest in research and development. The Department of Energy has a “Floating Offshore Wind Shot,” a program aimed at reducing the cost of floating technology 70% by 2030.
The winds that blow over the Gulf of Maine are especially strong and steady, making them one of the best potential renewable energy resources in the United States. The northeast is also “particularly blessed” with available substations where projects could connect to the grid, Eric Hines, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Tufts University told me. Several recent coal plant closures on the Massachusetts coast have created “an enormous amount of coastal transmission capacity that are prime locations for plugging in offshore wind,” he said.
The area also boasts favorable policy paired with relatively strong grassroots support. States in the Northeast are counting on floating offshore wind to hit their climate goals. Maine has set a goal of achieving 100% clean electricity by 2040, with at least 3 gigawatts of power prescribed to come from the Gulf. Massachusetts, too, anticipates needing some 23 gigawatts from offshore wind by 2050, with at least 10 coming from the Gulf of Maine.
Environmental groups in Maine have spent the past two years building political coalitions with fishermen, tribes, and labor unions in support of developing an offshore wind industry. Those efforts culminated in a major victory last summer when the state passed a bill that set strong labor standards for offshore wind development, created a requirement for tribal engagement in project development, and enshrined a policy of avoiding development in a key fishery known as Lobster Management Area One. Later, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management amended its map of lease areas in the Gulf of Maine to exclude that management area.
“That was a huge win,” Eanes said, and never would have happened without the environmental and labor movement’s proactive efforts to build consensus around where offshore wind should happen, if it were going to happen. As a result, they’ve been able to cultivate a different attitude toward offshore wind in Maine than you will find right now in New Jersey, for example.
“To be clear, if you go to a coastal community in Maine, especially one that lands a lot of lobsters, you’re not going to find support for offshore wind,” he said. “But the level of organized opposition has not been as pitched as it would have been had we seen lease areas in Lobster Management Area One.”
In a press release, Avangrid touted the Gulf of Maine’s strong wind speeds and access to interconnection, as well as the fact that it was “largely deconflicted from other ocean users following a rigorous federal public engagement process.” The company is already developing more than 5 gigawatts of offshore wind along the East Coast, including Vineyard Wind, which is currently under construction. This will be its first project to utilize floating technologies, however it is also owned by Iberdrola, a Spanish company with a pipeline of floating offshore wind projects in Europe.
Maine officials celebrated the results of the auction on Tuesday.
“The federal lease sale represents a significant milestone for Maine and the region as we advance offshore wind in a responsible manner to help us reduce our reliance on expensive, harmful fossil fuels, diversify our sources of energy, grow our economy, and fight climate change,”said Dan Burgess, Director of the Maine Governor’s Energy Office, in an emailed statement.
The Maine Department of Transportation, the agency leading the development of the would-be port, emphasized that it's undeterred despite losing out on the federal grant. “Maine has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop a port facility to create good-paying jobs while serving the entire region as we harness abundant clean wind energy in the Gulf of Maine,” Bruce Van Note, the transportation commissioner, said in a statement last week. “Our work will continue as we examine other opportunities to secure funding to advance this critical port infrastructure.”
The agency anticipates filing federal permit applications for the project in the next few months, kicking off a process anticipated to take two years, and securing additional funding for it by the end of 2025. But that timeline may depend on the results of the presidential election next week.
While it’s not always the best advice to take Donald Trump at his word, the former president promised supporters at a rally in New Jersey in May that he would “end” offshore wind development. “You won’t have to worry about Governor Murphy’s 157 windmills,” he said. “I’m going to write it out in an executive order. It’s going to end on day one.”
In its most recent quarterly market report, the industry association Oceantic Network noted that private investment and activity in the offshore wind sector “are decelerating … due largely to the uncertainty around the presidential election.”
At the same time, developers are used to long time horizons. Offshore wind projects can take a decade to permit and build, and as long as state support doesn’t slide, a slowdown of four years isn’t make-or-break. Even with a supportive administration, it will likely be impossible for Avangrid or Invenergy to begin construction in the Gulf of Maine before 2030, as that’s the absolute soonest Maine expects to get its port built.
The fact that two developers took the leap now rather than waiting for 2028 — which is when the next lease sale in the Gulf of Maine is scheduled — shows some level of confidence in the long-term prospects for the industry.
“These leases don’t come up for auction very often,” Hines told me. “And if you don’t have a lease, you can’t build a project.”
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Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”
Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.
What are you referencing when you say, ‘the wind industry’s strategy is failing’?
Anyone in the climate space, in the clean energy space, the worst thing you can do is go silent and pretend that this is just going to go away. Even if it’s the president and the administration delivering the attacks, I think there’s an important strategy that’s been lacking in the wind and other sectors that I don’t think has been effective. There was a recent E&E News story that noted a couple of wind developers when asked for comment just say, “No comment.” This to me misses a really big opportunity to not get in a fight with people but talk about the benefits of wind.
Not taking advantage of milestones like ground breaking or construction starting is a missed opportunity to drive public opinion. If you lose support in public opinion, you’re going to lose support from public officials, because they largely follow public opinion.
And there’s no way that’s going to change if you don’t take the opportunities to talk about the benefits that wind can provide, in terms of good-paying local jobs or supplying more electrons to the grid. By almost any measure the strategy employed so far has not really worked.
Okay, but what is the wind industry strategy that isn’t working? What are they doing to rebut attacks on the technology, on property values, on the environment?
We’re not hearing them. We’re not hearing those arguments.
You can’t let criticisms go unanswered.It would better serve the industry and these companies to push back against criticisms. It’s not like you can’t anticipate what they are. And what do you have to lose? You’re in the worst position of any energy sector in this political moment. It would be nice to see some fight and sharp campaign skills and strategic effort in terms of communication. And there’s no strategic value from what I can tell in [being silent].
I understand not wanting to pick a fight with folks who hold your fate in their hands, but there’s a way to thread a needle that isn’t antagonizing anybody but also making sure the facts have been heard. And that’s been missing.
You’d specifically said the industry should stop ‘being paralyzed in fear and start going on offense.’ What does that look like to you?
Taking every opportunity to get your message out there. The lowest hanging fruit is when a reporter comes and asks you, What do you think about this criticism? You should definitely reply. It’s lifting up third-party voices that are benefiting from a specific project, talking about the economic impacts more broadly, talking about the benefits to the grid.
There’s a whole number of tools in the toolbox to put to use but the toolboxes remain shut thus far. Targeted paid media, elevating the different voices and communities that are going to resonate with different legislators, and certainly the facts are helpful. Also having materials prepared, like validators and frequently asked questions and answers.
You’re trying to win. You’re trying to get your project to be successful and deliver jobs and tax revenue. And I think it would be wise for companies to look at the playbooks of electoral campaigns, because there’s lots of tools that campaigns use.
How do renewable energy developers get around the problem of partisanship? How do you get outta that through a campaign approach?
These projects are decided locally. It’s deciding who the decision-makers are and not just letting opponents who are getting talking points through right-wing media show up and reiterate these talking points. Oftentimes, there’s no one on the pro side even showing up at all, and it makes it really easy for city councils to oppose projects. They’re losing by forfeit. We can’t keep doing that.
And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.
2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.
3. Bedford County, Pennsylvania – Arena Renewables is trying to thread a needle through development in one of the riskiest Pennsylvania counties for development, with an agriculture-fueled opposition risk score of 89.
4. Knox County, Ohio – The Ohio Power Siting Board has given the green light to Open Road Renewables’ much-watched Frasier Solar project.
5. Clay County, Missouri – We’ll find out next week if rural Missouri can still take it easy on a large solar project.
6. Clark County, Nevada – President Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has pushed back the permitting process for EDF Renewables’ Bonanza solar project by at least two months and possibly longer .
7. Klickitat County, Washington – Washington State has now formally overridden local opposition to Cypress Creek’s Carriger solar project after teeing up the decision in May.
It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.
I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.
At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.
One can guess why investors thought this rural Wyoming expanse would be an easier place to build: it’s an energy community situated in the middle of the Powder River Basin and the state’s Republican governor Mark Gordon has supported wind projects in the state publicly, not just with rhetoric but votes in favor of them on the State Board of Land Commissioners.
Wind is also often proposed on private land in Wyoming, which is supposed to make things easier. You may remember the Lucky Star and Twin Rivers wind farms, a pair of projects whose progress I’ve watched like a hawk because they’re tied to the future of wind permitting at the national level. As we first reported, the Trump administration is proceeding with potentially approving the transmission line for Lucky Star, a project that would be sited entirely on private land, and Twin Rivers received its final environmental review in the last days of the Biden administration, making it difficult for anti-wind advocates to curtail.
Unlike those projects, Pronghorn has created a fork in the road for wind in Wyoming. It’s because the people in its host community don’t seem to want it, the wind projects were on state land, and there’s politics at play.
Despite being considered an energy community, Converse and Niobrara are both areas with especially high opposition risk, according to Heatmap Pro, largely due to its low support for renewable energy, its demographics, and concerns about impacts to the local ranching economy. After Gordon and other members of the state land use board approved two wind facilities for the hydrogen project, a rancher living nearby sued the board with public support from the mayor of Glenrock and the area’s legislators in the statehouse. A member of the Converse County zoning board even published a “manifesto” against the project, detailing local concerns that are myriad and rooted in fears of overburden, ranging from water use and property value woes to a general resentment toward an overall rise in wind turbines across the county and state.
What’s probably most concerning to wind supporters is that this local fight is bubbling up into a statewide political fracture between Gordon and his secretary of state Chuck Gray, who is believed to be a future candidate for governor. Grey was the lone dissenting vote against the two wind projects for Pronghorn, saying he did not support the projects because they would be assisted by federal tax credits Trump is trying to gut. Gray then took to mocking the governor on social media for his stance on wind while posting photos of broken wind turbines. Gordon wound up responding to his secretary of state accusing him of being the “only member of the state land board to vote against individual property rights and Wyoming schools.”
“That is his prerogative to be sure, but it demonstrates his disregard for the duties of his office and a determination to impose his personal preferences on others, no matter the cost,” Gordon stated.
I’ve been reaching out to Pronghorn and its founder Paul Martin to try and chat about what’s happening in Wyoming. I haven’t heard back, and if I do I’ll gladly follow this story up, but there’s a sign here of an issue in Wyoming whether Pronghorn gets built or not – areas of Wyoming may be on the verge of a breaking point on wind energy.
I heard about the Pronghorn project in conversations this week with folks who work on wind permitting issues in Wyoming and learned that the Gordon-Gray feud is emblematic of how the wind industry’s growth in the state is making local officials more wary of greenlighting projects. Whether Gordon’s position on private property wins out over Gray taking up the mantle of the anti-wind conservative critic may be the touchstone for the future of local planning decisions, too.
At least, that’s the sense I got talking to Sue Jones, a commissioner in Carbon County, directly southwest of Converse County. Jones admits she personally doesn’t care for wind farms and that it’s “no secret with the county, or the developers.” But so far, she hasn’t voted that way as a commissioner.
“If they meet all our rules and regs, then I’ve voted to give them a permit,” she told me. “You can’t just say no to anything. It’s a good thing that we value private property rights.”
Jones said the problem in Carbon County and other areas of Wyoming is “saturation level.” Areas of the state where only a handful of landowners hold thousands of acres? That’s probably fine for wind projects because there’s a low likelihood of a neighbor or two having a genuine grievance. But as wind has grown into population-denser areas of the state the dissent is becoming more frequent.
My gut feeling is that, as we’ve seen in many other instances, this resentment will bubble up and manifest as sweeping reform – unless the wind industry is able to properly address these growing concerns head on.