EERE Promotes America’s Offshore Wind

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE ) promotes access to the 4,150 gigawatts of clean domestic electricity that can be produced by America’s offshore wind energy.

EERE supports research, development, and demonstration of larger turbines, components, and floating deepwater platforms needed to affordably harness the strong winds off of America’s coasts. Recovery Act investments in two world-class testing facilities promote U.S. leadership in the development of offshore wind turbines that have the potential to produce 10 times more power than today’s typical land-based machines.

• The Massachusetts Wind Technology Testing Center became the first facility in the world with the capability to test blades up to 90 meters in length when it opened in 2011.
• South Carolina’s Wind Turbine Drivetrain Testing Facility will be one of the world’s only places to benchmark advanced drivetrain systems for wind turbines with capacities as great as 15 megawatts when it opens in late 2012.

EERE has engaged industry leaders and other stakeholders to develop a national offshore strategic plan and is working with the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense’s Army Corps of Engineers to accelerate further development of deepwater leasing and commercial scale projects on the Outer Continental Shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes.

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Press release, November 8, 2012; Image: EERE