The Evolution of Wind Power in 2016

New York Offshore Wind advances as South Fork Wind Farm by Deepwater Wind gains LIPA approval near Long Island, delivering 90-megawatt clean power with offshore turbines, supporting renewable energy goals, jobs, and climate action.

Key Points

New York Offshore Wind includes South Fork Wind Farm powering Long Island and advancing state renewable energy goals.

✅ LIPA approves 90 MW South Fork Wind Farm construction

✅ Deepwater Wind to build 15 offshore turbines near Montauk

✅ Supports NY 2030 renewable targets and coastal grid reliability

The company behind the first offshore wind farm in North America won approval Wednesday from New York state to build the country’s biggest seaward turbines yet, as U.S. offshore wind power is about to soar nationwide.

The Long Island Power Authority, a state-run utility company, gave Deepwater Wind the green light to begin construction on the South Fork Wind Farm, a 90-megawatt, 15-turbine development 30 miles southeast of Montauk, amid more South Shore turbine proposals from local planners.

“New York leads the nation in pioneering clean energy innovation, and this bold action marks the next step in our unprecedented commitment to offshore wind, as well as our ambitious long term energy goal of supplying half of all electricity from renewable sources by 2030,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said in a statement. “This project will not only provide a new, reliable source of clean energy, but will also create high-paying jobs, continue our efforts to combat climate change and help preserve our environment for current and future generations of New Yorkers.”

The move comes as the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry finally begins to gain steam. In November, Deepwater Wind completed construction on the Block Island Wind Farm, the five-turbine, 30-megawatt project that became the country’s first commercial wind farm located in the water. Last month, Statoil, Norway’s state-owned oil and gas giant, won a $42.5 million bid to lease 79,350 acres of federal waters located 14 miles off Long Island’s southwest coast, through a process overseen by BOEM officials and regulators. It’s unclear how many turbines would go up, but the company plans to build a wind farm producing at least 600 megawatts.

Winds off the coast of the U.S. are so reliably strong, turbines built offshore could generate 4,223 gigawatts of power ― four times the amount of electricity that’s currently produced from all sources in the country, according to a 2012 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Yet, even as the offshore wind industry boomed in Europe, tapping that resource has proved difficult, and questions remain about when the U.S. will reach 1 GW of offshore wind on the grid at scale. Wind turbines remain expensive. Electricity produced mostly by natural gas and coal continues to be cheap, relative to prices in other countries. Developers must navigate a Byzantine web of state and federal regulations before gaining approval to build turbines offshore.

Despite his pledge to eliminate up to 75 percent of federal regulations, newly sworn-in President Donald Trump could complicate things for the industry. He filled his Cabinet with climate science deniers and fossil fuel executives explicitly bent on boosting the oil, gas and coal sectors by slashing environmental rules that favor zero-emissions energy sources. He has a history of battling the wind industry, describing land-based turbines as a death trap for eagles and restarting a yearslong feud over an offshore project underway that obstructs the view at his golf course in Scotland. 

Under Cuomo’s plan for New York to get half of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, as New York investigates offshore wind sites, offshore wind provides 2,400 megawatts ― enough to power 1.25 million homes, according to state estimates. 

“It’s massive, how much energy is out there,” Catherine Bowes, senior manager for climate and energy at the National Wildlife Federation, told The Huffington Post on Wednesday. She added that her nonprofit planned to work with Deepwater Wind to ensure that migrating whales, fish and other sea creatures would not be hurt by the construction of the windmills. “It is a game-changing scale of the amount of clean energy out there right where we need it, right along the big coastal zone from Boston down to Washington, D.C.,” she said.

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Climate Change Effects on Global Wind Power include shifting wind resources, altered temperature gradients, and regional hotspots, with declines in Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes and gains across the Southern Hemisphere and tropics, according to climate models.

Key Points

Shifting temperature gradients cut wind potential in the north and boost resources across southern and tropical regions.

✅ Northern mid-latitude winds weaken under high emissions

✅ Southern and tropical hotspots strengthen over oceans

✅ Planning must adapt as models show regional uncertainty

In the next century, wind resources may decrease in many regions of the Northern Hemisphere and could sharply increase in some hotspot regions down south, according to a study by University of Colorado Boulder researchers. The first-of-its-kind study predicting how global wind power may shift with climate change appears today in Nature Geoscience.

'There's been a lot of research looking at the potential climate impact of energy production transformations-like shifting away from fossil fuels toward renewables,' said lead author Kris Karnauskas, CIRES Fellow and Assistant Professor in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at CU Boulder. 'But not as much focuses on the impact of climate change on energy production by weather-dependent renewables, like wind energy.'

Wind powers only about 3.7 percent of worldwide energy consumption today, but global wind power capacity is increasing rapidly-about 20 percent a year, and long-term analyses like the BNEF 2050 outlook point to major growth ahead. Karnauskas and colleagues Julie Lundquist and Lei Zhang, also in ATOC, wanted to better understand likely shifts in production, so they turned to an international set of climate model outputs to assess changes in wind energy resources across the globe. The team then used a 'power curve' from the wind energy industry to convert predictions of global winds, density and temperature into an estimate of wind energy production potential.

While not all of the climate models agreed on what the future will bring, substantial changes may be in store, especially a prominent asymmetry in wind power potential across the globe. If carbon dioxide emissions continue at high levels, wind power resources may decrease in the Northern Hemisphere's mid-latitudes, and increase in the Southern Hemisphere and tropics by 2100.

Strangely, the team also found that if emission levels are mitigated, dropping lower in coming decades, they see only a reduction of wind power in the north-it may not be countered with an increase of power in the south.

Renewable energy decision makers typically plan and install wind farms in areas with consistently strong winds today. For example, the prairies of the American Midwest-persistently windy today and in recent decades-are dotted with tens of thousands of turbines. While the new assessment finds wind power production in these regions over the next twenty years will be similar to that of today, it could drop by the end of the century.

By contrast, potential wind energy production in northeastern Australia could see dramatic increases.

Potential global wind power in coming years. Top images represent next 40 years, bottom images represent next 80 years. Left images represent lower emissions, right images represent higher emissions scenario. Red areas are wind power hotspots, blue areas are reductions. White areas are uncertain. Image: Kris Karnauskas/CIRES

There were different reasons for the Northern decline and the Southern increase in wind power potential in the high-emissions scenario, Karnauskas and his co-authors found in their analysis of modeling results. In the Northern Hemisphere, warmer temperatures at the North Pole weaken the temperature difference between this cold region and the warm equator. A smaller temperature gradient means slower winds in the northern mid-latitudes.

'These decreases in North America occur primarily during the winter season, when those temperature gradients should be strong and drive strong winds,' said Associate Professor Lundquist, who is also a RASEI Fellow. In addition to North America, the team identified possible wind power reductions in Japan, Mongolia and the Mediterranean by the end of the century. This may be bad news for the Japanese, who are rapidly accelerating their wind power development, with growth despite COVID-19 observed in recent years.

In the Southern Hemisphere, where there is more ocean than land, a different kind of gradient increases: land warms faster than the surrounding, much-larger oceans. That intensified gradient increases the winds. Hotspots for likely wind power increases include: Brazil, West Africa, where hydropower support could complement wind growth, South Africa and Australia.

'Europe is a big question mark,' added Karnauskas. 'We have no idea what we'll see there. That's almost scary, given that Europe is producing a lot of wind energy already, with offshore wind market poised to become a $1 trillion business in the coming decades.' The trend in this region (and in others, like the southeastern United States) is just too uncertain: some models forecast wind power increase, and others, a decrease.

In a warming world, harnessing more wind power in coming decades could be critical for countries trying to meet emission reduction standards set by the Paris Climate Agreement, even as Africa may not go green this decade, highlighting regional challenges. The team's results may help inform decision-makers across the globe determining where to deploy this technology.

'The climate models are too uncertain about what will happen in highly productive wind energy regions, like Europe, the Central United States, and Inner Mongolia,' said Lundquist. 'We need to use different tools to try to forecast the future-this global study gives us a roadmap for where we should focus next with higher-resolution tools.'

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Ireland Wind Power Exports drive record renewable electricity, with onshore and offshore wind capacity surging, SEAI report finds, cutting fossil fuel imports and CO2 emissions and boosted by Corrib gas field and windier conditions.

Key Points

Electricity exports enabled by record onshore and offshore wind in Ireland, reducing fossil fuel imports.

✅ Wind capacity rose to 2,827 MW, boosting electricity generation

✅ Renewables met 27% of gross electricity consumption in 2016

✅ CO2 cuts of 3.1 Mt and lower fossil fuel import spend

Ireland became an exporter of electricity last year on the back of record production from onshore and offshore windfarms, in line with a record year for renewables globally in 2016, and this year’s production could be even higher, a new report shows.

And the country’s spending on imported fossil fuels fell by €1.2 billion last year following the opening of the often-controversial Corrib gas field off the Mayo coast.

A report from Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), due to be published on Tuesday, highlights major changes in where Ireland’s energy comes from, as renewables surpassed fossil fuels in Europe for the first time, and how it is now being consumed.

Ireland produced its largest amount of renewable electricity ever last year, reflecting leadership in integrating renewables onto the grid, on the back of the introduction of an additional 400 megawatts of power from wind turbines.

This brought the total capacity of Ireland’s wind turbines, on land and at sea, to 2,827 megawatts, amid rising European wind investments across the region, according to the SEAI’s annual Energy in Ireland Report. It includes analysis going back to 1990.

Most of the turbines that entered service last year did so towards the end of last year, so this year’s figures should be higher again, the report says. In addition, the more windy conditions seen this year will also boost production.

Renewable electricity generation accounted for more than 27 per cent of gross electricity consumption in 2016, with over one-third green within four years expected nationally, while the use of renewables in electricity generation reduced CO2 emissions by 3.1 million tonnes and avoided €192 million of fossil fuel imports.

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