By David Wojick
California has adopted a target of 25,000 MW of floating offshore wind generation capacity. Of course, the cost is never mentioned, so here is a rough estimate to get the ball rolling.
The estimate begins with the huge Dominion Energy (DOM) fixed wind project currently under construction off of Virginia. Because the regulated utility DOM is its own developer, we get some public numbers, so here is a crude derivation. Big numbers are rounded for simplicity and ease of memory.
A. DOM says the 2,600 MW facility will cost $10 billion to build, which is about $4 billion/GW. But financing and profit bump that to $20 billion or $8 billion/GW, which is called the “revenue requirement” or what rate payers will pay. We will use that number.
B. DOM brags that they are immune to the big cost spike that has swept the industry because their contracts predate it. The costs have increased an estimated 65% industry-wide. That pushes the fixed bottom cost to $6.6 billion/GW construction and $13.2 billion/GW total.
C. Floating wind is generally estimated to be three times fixed wind because that huge floater costs a huge amount more than the single monopile a fixed tower sits on, plus there is a lot of mooring to the sea floor. Off California, the water is around a half mile deep.
This gives a construction cost of roughly $20 billion/GW and a total of $40 billion/GW. It could be a lot more as it has never been done.
D. Thus, 25 GW of floating capacity comes to $500 billion for construction and an incredible trillion dollars with financing. Note this does not include 20 years’ worth of expensive operation, maintenance, repair, replacement and decommissioning. That makes it well over a trillion.
This is California’s trillion-dollar floating wind fantasy.
Now, let’s turn this into a possible power purchase agreement (PPA) price. A trillion dollars paid over 20 years is $50,000,000,000 a year. Assuming a 40% capacity factor, that works out to 57 cents a KWh. Given that the average wholesale price of electricity in California is just around 5 cents, this is incredibly expensive.
The floating wind startup price is almost 12 times the regular price of electricity. Floating wind is a crazy policy, even by California’s crazy standards.
Which brings us to something happening right now. The U.S. Energy Department’s Grid Deployment Office is asking for information and comments on developing an offshore wind transmission plan for the West Coast. See https://www.energy.gov/gdo/west-coast-offshore-wind-transmission-planning
Here is the basic announcement: “The West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission effort includes a Request for Information to allow individuals and organizations to submit written input about transmission topics, including siting, technology, and policy considerations. The GDO team will consider this input as they prepare West Coast recommendations. Responses must be received by October 3, 2024, and can be sent by emailing OSWTransmission@hq.doe.gov.”
DOE says the West Coast plan will be similar to the massive “ACTION PLAN FOR OFFSHORE WIND TRANSMISSION DEVELOPMENT IN THE U.S. ATLANTIC REGION“. This Action Plan is from the Energy Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which is actually building the offshore wind monsters. The plan creates a massive undersea grid along the entire Atlantic coast.
The Atlantic Action Plan shows specific offshore wind projects in ever-increasing numbers by five-year increments, from 30,000 MW in 2030 to 85,000 MW in 2050. Suppose the West Coast plan is just as big as the East Coast at 85,000 MW. That is a monstrous 3.4 trillion dollars worth of floating wind, a technology that does not even exist at commercial scale.
I encourage people to send in comments objecting to this monstrous floating wind development effort. America does not need trillions of dollars worth of unreliable electricity.
Northerly wind ‘Nobby‘ has been blowing this morning and it’s a whopping [global warming, UHI etc adjusted] 12C
All the really extreme weather is occurring in SW1A 1AA (Westminster) with the dense fog of uniparty politik, the flood, nay deluge, of authoritarianism, and the drought of compassion for anyone outside the bubble.
NB
After the disastrous ‘no takers’ auction round the Tories upped the subsidies on offer which did the trick. Mad monk Miliband made a video the other day appearing to take the credit. Classy.
“”Global heating could raise potential for offshore wind power, study says””
https://www.theguardian.com/news/article/2024/sep/05/global-heating-could-raise-potential-for-offshore-wind-power-study-says
No, huge subsidies raise the potential. Paid whether they be turning or not.
The upper middle class meets a bacon sarnie….
I can’t recall seeing a photograph of Miliband in which he doesn’t look like an idiot.
Milliband is upper middle class??????????
I see what you’re saying: he’s an ordinary working class bloke
No.
He thinks he is upper class.
Really he isn’t upper anything.
especially academically
Upperhimself?
Something should be up him.
Can’t. That area is already occupied by his head.
From the article: “I encourage people to send in comments objecting to this monstrous floating wind development effort. America does not need trillions of dollars worth of unreliable electricity.”
I would encourage people to vote Republican.
Writing a comment will have little effect. If a Democrat/Harris is elected president, then this project will go forward. If a Republican/Trump is elected president, this project will be killed.
voting for the proper person is more important and will have more effect than writing a comment.
That’s not to say that one should not comment. It might do some good. No harm in trying, but you would be writing to leftwing bureaucrats, so don’t expect a warm reception.
Yes, I agree 100%
Vote Republican down the line, en masse, to get woke, socialist, Europe-coddling Democrats OUT OF OUR GOVERNMENT
Democrat’s $5 TRILLION of deficit spending in 3.5 years:
increased the reach and bulk of their weaponized, oppressive federal government,
gave us a US media that acts as an arm/shill of socialist Democrats
increased the national debt by $5 TRILLION
gave us high inflation
gave us high food prices
gave us high energy prices,
gave us high interest rates,
gave us the Afghanistan “withdrawal” that left $80 billion of weaponry to the Taliban
gave us “energy policies” that ruin the east coast with wind turbines.
gave us wind and solar, etc., with expensive electricity for many decades
gave us open borders at $150 billion per year, far less than completing the wall,
gave us millions of unvetted, unskilled illegals, and deadly chaos and crime in cities
gave us the war in Ukraine at $100 billion per year, Ukraine ruined, Russia the upper hand,
gave us a Middle East on fire.
All this is the fault of the incompetent Biden/Harris cabal of Clinton Obama holdovers.
Now who wouldn’t want this beautiful sight to be the first thing they see when they go to the beach
At least they are still standing…. for now.
But given the excitement of a radical hurricane season, well, we shall see.
The worse past is no politician should have any say. Subsidies should not exist the only question is can it work at market prices. In the case it a huge no.
Typhoon country
Is it? I thought they were rare off CA.
Typo kWh not KWh (which is Kelvin Watt hours)
I’m not Californian, but given your considerable land area of desert, where the sun shines a huge percentage of the year, surely a far greater focus on solar- than on wind is common sense in that part of the world?
Neither wind nor solar make any sense, they are two kinds of shit of somewhat different flavor.
Desert = sand/dust not ideal for pv arrays which quickly lose efficiency if not kept clean (needs water).
Another plate of Solyndra, anyone?
Why not? Just cut down more Joshua Trees. After all, aren’t solar panels better for the environment that pristine desert ecosystems?
A fair question. However, what about the local ecology? The impacts on massive solar farms also include a UHI effect, less water absorbed in the soil, etc., which means impacts on regional weather, negative impacts.
And a hail storm? Cost to maintain and repair. Desert winds will fog and score the panels over time and decrease the effective capacity.
And once installed, that land is forever inhospitable.
Checkout 35.37242823296168, -120.05468730670351 on any satellite map.
Not enough for you? Checkout 35.32317743612825, -119.91559867927734 too.
Both cover 100s of acres of the environmentally sensitive Carrizo plain.
But California still must import 30% of its power from other states. All because they refuse to build uninterruptable power plants because they are saving the earth.
That first set of coordinates – just the one “small” section that lands me in is about a square mile of panels. The whole installation is probably about 7 sq. miles just of panels.
That first one is Topaz Solar Farm … nameplate 550MW capacity factor 26% net 140MW covering 4700 acres. At 140MW actual you would need 17 such subsidy farms to equal the output of Diablo Canyon NPP and cover 77,000 acres
The second is California.Valley Solar Ranch … nameplate 250MW capacity factor 30.8% covering 1966 acres. At 30.8% CF it produces as much as an 80MW site would so would take 26 times to equal Diablo Canyon and cover 52,000 acres
C’mon, man! No price is too high when you are saving the world!
Oops, sorry. The Asian world’s emissions overcome any of these efforts. They laugh at our puny 25 MW! They have already built more than that in coal.
They built 47,000 MW just last year.
That is just the Chinese.
20 years use is optomistic, the marine environment is pretty harsh on steel structures and the Pacific swell won’t do the actual windmills on top of the structures much good.
And mooring in 500 fathoms will be challenging indeed.
Good luck to the construction gangs. They’ll need it.
Structural engineers did an analysis that concluded the mean time to failure for wind turbines is 4.3 years.
Will the swell put severe strain on the bearings?
Will the swell break blades?
Good luck to the deconstruction gangs in ten years time. They’ll need it. And someone will have to pay them. I wonder who.
How much would it cost to build 25.000 MW in nuclear power plant? We haven’t added the backup for floating wind in that 1 trillion dollars. Everyone who keeps telling that renewables are the cheapest form of energy should be executed.
And the cost to deliver all that scattered power to shore?
Yes that is what the “transmission plan” is all about. This whole project would be funny if it were not so ridiculous. Kamalafornia?
Don’t be sooooo mean, man!
Just give them a lobotomy (if their diet and college education hasn’t already,) and let them pay back all the tax dollars wasted on Ruinable Energy by working as test subjects for the pharmaceutical industry! Think of all the rats and mice and other vermin that could save!
And…….when the wind is not blowing…..they will burn wood pellets…..what A DISASTER!
Maybe they can burn the bulldozed Joshua trees….
So David, any comments on whales and oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico from cfact? Or do we remain silent not to bite the hand that feeds us?
The whales were all drilled for their oil a couple of centuries ago.
We found more plentiful oil right under our own feet, as it turned out, so we were able to spare the whales.
See, we got “save the whales” done & dusted before Greenpeace even graduated from diapers to frilly panties.
Dang, why can’t we PLUS more than one?
Plus a billion
myusername thinks whales are drilling for oil now?
Yep, if it weren’t for oil in the gulf, we’d still be drilling whales for oil…if there.were any left to drill
Unlike offshore wind, offshore oil wells can make money by selling product at existing market prices as opposed to 10X existing prices. In addition, an offshore oil platform produces a lot more usubale energy than a similar sized off shore wind platform, so the effect on whales for a given energy output will be substantially less.
Yes a Federal judge has just ruled the Biological Opinion for an oil rig is invalid because it does not properly assess and protect the desperately endangered Rice’s whale. This is exactly the argument CFACT is making for offshore wind and the equally endangered right whale so they may have a powerful precedent.
Of course the difference is we need oil (and shipping, fishing, etc.) but we do not need offshore wind.
Another difference is the number of oil rigs versus the number of eye sores, erm, wind towers.
From the above article:
“This gives a construction cost of roughly $20 billion/GW and a total of $40 billion/GW. It could be a lot more as it has never been done.”
Remember when smart business leaders—and even some politicians (imagine that)—would assert that before we commit to spending $billions on a massive project involving unproven technology we first needed to have a full-scale proof-of-concept demonstrator, or two, maybe costings several tens of $millions total . . . the demonstration(s) taking 2–5 years in the field to be a realistic test of the new technology’s feasibility?
Remember when . . .
That is called engineering which CA does not believe in.
The thing with engineering is that one cannot B.S. mother nature, but the vast majority of the CA state government seems to think that can B.S. mother nature.
They are working on legislation to redefine pi = 3.0 because an irrational number is irrational.
California now readily admits that they need to keep passing environmental and energy laws in order to fine tune policy results to “get it right”. Which means they really aren’t saving the Earth, which was the intent.
Welcome to government that is always “worse than we thought”. Which means we really didn’t think anything through before acting at all. Which is always a result of a one party state.
You can’t make this stuff up, but there it is for all to see.
Proof-of-concept… You mean like NASA developing one piece and testing it before adding another piece and testing it before multiple tests before sending men to the moon?
Redstone – Atlas- Mercury – Gemini – Saturn – Apollo (partial list)
No . . . not at all . . . that a very bad attempt at offering an example. Each one of those rockets/programs was very different from any of the others, but maybe you weren’t aware of that fact.
Here’s an clear example of what I implied about the wisdom of testing full scale “demonstrators” in-the-field before embarking on embarking on a widespread, multibillion $ deployment of unproven technology:
— the Crescent Dunes concentrating solar power plant at Tonopah, Nevada, about 190 miles northwest of Las Vegas
— the Ivanpah concentrating solar power plant in California’s Mojave Desert across the state line from Primm, Nevada
Both of these commercial scale CSP power plants incorporated technology previously unproven at full scale but were advertised to be relatively low-cost and reliable, but both within a year or two after beginning commercial-scale electrical production developed major technical and operational problems that caused both to default or come near defaulting on production contracts.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project , the Crescent Dunes CSP plant “began operation in September 2015 but went off-line in October 2016 due to a leak in a molten salt tank . . .It returned to operation in July 2017 . . .The plant having last produced power in April 2019, NV Energy—the project’s sole customer—terminated its contract in October 2019 on the basis of the project having “failed to produce . . .DoE took over the shuttered plant in August 2019.”
The Ivanpah facility formally opened on February 13, 2014. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility ,
“. . . contracted power-delivery performance of 640 GWh/year from Units 1 and 3 and 336 GWh from Unit 2 was met by 2017, following sharply reduced production in the first few years of operation, particularly in the start-up year of 2014 . . . In March 2016, PG&E agreed not to declare the plant in default for at least four months in return for an undisclosed sum from the owners.”
(my bold emphasis added)
Because both of these full-scale demonstrators revealed very serious problems, there has been no subsequent mass rush to field any additional large-scale CSP plants across the US.
DoE and Dominion Energy have both apparently failed to “learn the lesson of history.”
I won’t quibble with the projections here. They seem generally reasonable and probably understated from what will actually happen. But the great planners, such as they are, recognize the key is to give us no alternative. Sort of like the British auto mandates, but on a grand and overarching scale. That way they can claim they saved the world and no one will have dispositive proof to the contrary.
They have very little to lose. They’re not going to jail. They’re not going to have to give up their grants, contracts, or salaries. Worst we can do to them is turn away from them and (unlikely) vote them down. But there is still “hope” in the pain they will bring.
UK: plans for 55GW off-shore wind are in doubt after it was reported the materials, construction crews, ships and other infrastructure would not be available to build the project. It is further reported that even if the project were completed, the grid infrastructure would not be able to carry the additional load, so the turbines would have to be switched off for much of the time.
I wonder has any of this been considered by Californian fantasists? The good news being it probably never will get built.
It’s called only considering what is seen, not what is not seen. Something in which politicians excel.
Yes, it may not happen, however the spending will happen. ( Like the train to nowhere.)
It’s all about the Benjamins baby.
One wayward typhoon and it will all be gone, except for the mess.
The companies building them should be required to post bonds for that future, inevitable, clean up.
Well, if the mess is 500 fathoms underwater I guess the powers that be won’t care very much and it would save all the decomissioning costs when the things wear out.
Just build them underwater to begin with!
Let the currents turn the blades!
So much for the undersea ecology. I suppose splintered fiberglass does better in fish bellies than in tourist feet.
Wind machine crap all over the beaches(and beetches) of Malibu…oh, the humanity!
Where’s Iron Eyes Cody when you need him?
What about the whales and other marine life?
What’s good for oil rigs in the Gulf should be good for the Pacific.
I have spent a bit of my life off the coast of California, this is a bad idea, it can (occasionally) get as rough as anywhere.
We should ask Mark jacobson for his comments
After all – he is the renowned renewable energy expert
He is the expert that is so highly valued that his expertise should command an 8 digit salary.
Though some noted that he cant get a job in the industry that he is the foremost expert. go figure
California uses about 250 terawatts of power
This project is only going to produce 25,000 megawatts
How does this even make sense…….
Peak electric summertime electric demand in California is on the order of 50GW, so 25GW of wind generation would supply half of CA’s electric demand IF the wind is blowing. Having said that, there is no guarantee that the wind will be blowing during peak demand times. This also does not take into account increases in demand due to CA’s desire to replace NG with electricity.
Erik,
The comment to which you were responding, from Clintsallow, states that California uses about 250 terawatts of power – a very large number.
In your comment, you state that California peak electricity demand in the summer is 50 GW, a much smaller, but big, number.
Which number, if either, is correct?
According to CalISO (via Fox News), the number is:
“California Independent System Operators said we could experience rolling blackouts if people do not cut down on energy use. Cal ISO is forecasting record-level peak demand of 51,145 megawatts (MW), which would set a new record from the previous high of 50,270 MW in 2006.”
Peak electricity use in California expected to reach 20-year high today | FOX 11 Los Angeles (foxla.com) (For September 6, 2024)
Looks like 50 GW isn’t far off – just a bit low.
Likely meant TWh not TW. Peak usually during stagnant high induced heatwave with low to no wind so no power.
250 TWh would be in the right ballpark, but does -um- strike me as a bit high.
According to https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2022-total-system-electric-generation , in CY2022 total electrical energy generation/use in California was 287 TWh, with about 29% of that coming from energy imports for sources outside of the state.
On an annual accounting basis, the correct units to use are TWh, not TW. So yes, Retired_Engineer_Jim used units of “TW” when he should have used units of “TWh”. Also, his claim of “about 250 TW[h]” would be low compared to 2022 actuals and the fact that California’s energy consumption as of 2024 has grown larger than it was in 2022.
Another “renewable energy” boondoggle waiting to fail if it even sees completion. I bet it won’t despite massive $ spent. Moneyed ‘elites’ love this kind of investments.
California has a 1000 miles of coastal mountain range that has as much wind as is available offshore. They could easily build all wind turbines onshore and lower the cost and maintenance of the project.
The reason California wants offshore wind turbines is because politicians know that environmentalists don’t want to see them or hear them and they don’t want anyone to be able to count the bird and bat bodies on the ground under them.
So California feelings now cost you 3 times the cost when developing offshore wind farms.
Please do a Web search on the acronym NIMBY.
“DOM says the 2,600 MW facility will cost $10 billion to build, which is about $4 billion/GW.”. That’s $4m/MW.
Hmmm. The UK’s West of Duddon Sands wind farm in the Irish Sea (not floating) cost well over $5/MW in 2014.
And, of course, ‘GW’ and ‘MW’ in this context are not real GW and MW.
How many nuclear power plants and fossil fuel plants could be built with that kind of money? They are both dispatchable, have a small footprint, can be turned up or down if needed, are not a blight on the landscape, are affordable, have very long life spans especially compared to wind and solar, are less prone to damage from bad weather and don’t slaughter our wildlife.
Does not get any dumber than this.
As a 20 something backpacker I did half a year on a “floater” oil rig in the North Sea. A massive structure to manage one Derrick and drill platform. A nano second of deep thought and one discards this ultimate folly.
Please let this happen. First, there’s a 99.99% chance it will be an abject failure and the other states will not follow. Secondly, environmentalists will continue to get enough support to sway political leaders until monumental failures turn people away. Finally, it’s California. They need to be hammered constantly by their own failures until they realize how nuts the Progressive agenda is. And in the off-chance it is successful – that 0.01% chance – we will have another viable source of electric power.
Lots and lots of lovely government moolah to be harvested so this will go ahead. Monorails are just Tinker Toys when compared to these new, expensive white elephants for cash extraction. All thanks to the tiny miracle CO2 molecule. What a work political man is.