CEC Announces New Increased Offshore Wind Power Production Goals

The California Energy Commission (CEC) announced on Wednesday that they are increasing offshore wind power construction goals in the next two decades by having up to 5 gigawatts (GW) of electricity coming from the turbines by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045, approximately enough to power 25 million homes.

In the past several years, California has been steadily increasing the number of new offshore wind power plants in order to meet the 2045 goal of having 100% carbon free energy statewide made under SB 100, also known as the 100 Percent Clean Energy Act of 2018. In 2021, offshore wind power production goals were officially set at 3 GW by 2030 and 10 GW by 2040 under AB 525.

Last month, in a letter to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), Governor Gavin Newsom asked for increased measures to reach environmental goals across the state even quicker, including asking that offshore wind power production goals be increased to 20 GW by 2045.

However, with California’s energy needs growing due to the increased shut down of fossil fuel plants, planned offshore wind plants currently being well below what is being planned  along East Coast states, and President Biden calling for 30 GW coming from offshore wind farms nationwide by 2030, the CEC bumped up goals even further.

“These ambitious yet achievable goals are an important signal of how committed California is to bringing the offshore wind industry to our state,” said CEC Chairman David Hochschild on Wednesday. “This remarkable resource will generate clean electricity around the clock and help us transition away from fossil fuel-based energy as quickly as possible while ensuring grid reliability.”

“I think what we do here matters more than we realize. We have a great track record of starting things in California, and what we’re doing today on wind is yet another step.”

Offshore Wind California executive director Adam Stern added, “This is truly excellent news for California’s offshore wind industry, workers and electricity ratepayers. These goals set an ambitious course and show that California is very serious about going big on offshore wind, to drive economies of scale and generate the very substantial clean power, climate and jobs benefits that this renewable energy resource can generate for our state.”

Future energy in California

Energy experts have noted that the new goals are possible, but that California should be able to keep other options on the table, such as increased nuclear power, keeping many non-carbon neutral plants open until better energy storage technology is available, or pushing for electrical grid improvements for better importation and exportation of energy.

“California has a lot of irons in the fire when it comes to energy production in the future,” explained Tony Gauss, an energy sector consultant, to the Globe on Thursday. “Wind is important, as is solar, but we need to look beyond those. We need to look at bringing back nuclear to an extent, we need to look at biomass and hydropower, especially the latter as many in California want more reservoirs for future water sources. Even potential huge future energy sources like helium-3. That’s long-term. Short-term we need to make sure we have enough energy too, and don’t shut down more fossil fuel plants than what we can replace them with.

“The transition needs to be more gradual, dependent on how our energy storage capabilities are. But California is trying to get to that point way too fast right now. I mean, many want Diablo Canyon, the last nuclear power plant in the state, closed, despite it being clean energy and providing 9% of power in the state. These are rash decisions.

“Again, it’s good we are looking to the future, but we need to secure the next couple of decades too. They’re still short sighted on this.”

The CEC is to create a roadmap plan for offshore production and infrastructure to the legislature no later than June 2023.