Offshore wind is a very expensive proposition that finds a home only where electricity is expensive--in northern European countries or off the coast of islands where electricity prices are already high
The Block Island Wind Farm, a 30 megawatt facility off the Rhode Island coast, went into operation on Monday, December 12. The project consists of five large offshore turbines supplied by GE Renewable Energy and operated by Deepwater Wind.1 Electricity generated by the turbines is routed via submarine cables to the 1,000 full-time residents of Block Island. It took years of state and federal policy-making, environmental impact assessments and town hall meetings for the Block Island Wind Farm to come to fruition due to its cost and the damage to the view. It cost $300 million2--$10,000 per kilowatt--over 10 times more than the cost of a new natural gas combined cycle unit. Further, it is 58 percent more costly than what the Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects a first-of-a-kind offshore wind unit to cost--$6,331 per kilowatt. In fact, EIA's offshore wind costs are even higher than its advanced nuclear costs--by about 4 percent.3
