With at least 80 offshore projects in operation
But the U.S. lags woefully behind the rest of the world in offshore wind power generation. With at least 80 offshore projects in operation or under construction (powered by more than 1,900 wind turbines), Europe leads the world in design and deployment of offshore wind farms, having the backing and support of key developers and governments over the past 30 years to master the many intricacies and challenges related to offshore wind.
Back home in the U.S., offshore wind development is in its infant stages, as federal, state and local governments, along with wind farm developers, have just taken the first steps in a quest to harvest electricity from the consistent and unobstructed wind that bellows off the coast.
LEEDCo Wades Into Lake Erie with “Icebreaker”
As a front-runner in the race to develop one of the first offshore wind projects in the United States, the non-profit Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) is currently developing a demonstration project called “Icebreaker” that will solve the challenges of deploying wind turbines in a freshwater environment. With a design consisting of six wind turbines positioned seven miles off the coast of Cleveland, Icebreaker will become a catalyst to building an offshore wind industry in Ohio and the Great Lakes region. And with new industries and new markets come old challenges, according to Eric Ritter, LEEDCo communications and strategy manager, who noted that the natural approach to manufacturing components for such a project would traditionally come from overseas, where the offshore wind industry is already well established. But this is where the tide turns. “Our options were to either look to Europe and hire suppliers that had the specific manufacturing capabilities, or go the local route and identify those manufacturers with similar capabilities, then hone those capabilities to meet our offshore standards and requirements,” said Ritter.