While Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was in Boston on Wednesday announcing the Biden administration’s plans for deploying 30 GW of offshore wind, the Department of Energy released a new report on the gaps that will need filling to build enough transmission to get electricity from those turbines to the millions of homes they might power.

The report reviews more than 20 transmission studies for Atlantic Coast OSW projects to date and finds most were done on a project-by-project basis, “which may not necessarily be optimal for expanded development.” With a current pipeline of more than 35 GW of projects extending from Maine to Virginia, comprehensive, proactive transmission planning that incorporates “robust future scenarios across the broader interconnected system” will be needed, the report says.

Such an approach is essential, the report says, because of a frequent mismatch between the potential high output of offshore wind generation and daily variations in power demand, which can result in curtailment and transmission congestion.

For example, the report notes that ISO-NE will need minimal upgrades to interconnect the 5.8 GW total of offshore wind now being developed in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Additional offshore projects could result in higher costs and curtailments, the report says.

NYISO, on the other hand, is facing cable routing limitations, substation space constraints and permitting challenges as it looks to expand and upgrade transmission on Long Island and in New York City to integrate the state’s planned 9 GW of OSW.

As an alternative to states going it alone, the report says transmission planning should look at co-optimizing systems with “generation and storage technologies to holistically compare completely integrated alternatives that capture generation and transmission trade-offs to adequately meet customer demand and federal and state policy objectives.”

Reaching such objectives will mean addressing research gaps in four key areas, the report says.

• Studies by individual states, RTOs and ISOs — encompassing a range of study years and OSW deployment scenarios — generally assume the states involved each have a specific claim on offshore wind resources. But state and national goals may not be aligned, creating “a gap in understanding the Atlantic Coast and Eastern Interconnection implications of how offshore wind will be utilized by different states,” the report says.
• Similarly, interconnection studies by RTOs and ISOs tend to be “deployment-specific,” focusing on single projects. While long-term planning efforts have begun, the report says traditional transmission planning misses the potential for collaborative solutions, such as shared transmission or shared rights-of-way that could minimize costs and impacts.
• Technical and economic analyses of offshore wind have been widely conducted along the Atlantic Coast, but few states have yet to look at the details of routing and interconnecting transmission cables. Further, current analyses don’t account for technologies that need further development, such as high-voltage DC circuit breakers, which will be essential for developing offshore HVDC transmission, the report says. Without such in-depth analysis, technical solutions could be proposed that are either infeasible or overly costly.
• With some technologies still in development, standards and practices for integrated offshore transmission networks are a critical gap in current analyses, the report says. As one example, many studies make future estimates of project reliability and resilience based on a year or less of weather data, the report says. This approach can leave out high-impact events like hurricanes and other “natural patterns of variability and uncertainty that occur over longer periods and for which the system should be designed.”

The FERC Connection

Stepping up research — and accelerating offshore wind development — will require collaborative efforts, and the report suggests that FERC step into the currently vacant role of coordinating local, state and national planning efforts, convening stakeholders and establishing frameworks for evaluating OSW transmission options. Referencing FERC’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (RM21-17) focused on transmission planning and cost allocation, the report envisions improved coordination that would promote more streamlined and consistent transmission planning.

Exactly how realistic that vision is remains uncertain. The report’s release also coincided with the end of a 75-day comment period on the ANOPR. The commission received 165 comments from stakeholders ranging from RTOs and ISOs to utilities, developers and industry associations. (See FERC Tx Inquiry: Consensus on Need for Change, Discord Over Solutions.)

A key theme across many comments was opposition to any “one-size-fits-all” solution, instead calling for engagement with state regulators and policy makers in the transmission planning process.

While recognizing the need for reform, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) said “the commission should not lose sight of the need to ensure that all potential transmission planning reforms explicitly recognize the essential role states, and state laws, play in this process.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) called for a “coordinated effort between FERC and states in the development and implementation of any regulatory change, including devising improved mechanisms to bring state legislatures into the energy decision-making process as full participants on an ongoing basis.”

Looking at potential models for future planning, the report points to New Jersey’s state agreement with PJM, under which the RTO will incorporate the state’s goal of 7,500 MW of offshore wind into its regional planning process.

It also cites onshore wind planning in Texas, where the Public Utilities Commission and ERCOT worked together on the development of renewable energy zones and the necessary transmission buildout.

Co-existing with Fisheries and Marine Life

Attacking the challenges of offshore wind development on all fronts, the DOE on Wednesday also announced $13.5 million in funding “to provide critical environmental and wildlife data to support offshore wind development.” The money will go to four projects, “that will inform offshore wind siting [and] permitting and help protect wildlife and fisheries as offshore wind deployment increases,” the announcement said.

“In order for Americans living in coastal areas to see the benefits of offshore wind, we must ensure that it’s done with care for the surrounding ecosystem by co-existing with fisheries and marine life — and that’s exactly what this investment will do,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in the announcement.

Duke University received more than half of the funding — $7.5 million — for a project that will assess and monitor the impact of offshore wind development on birds, bats and other marine mammals.