Offshore wind projects off New England can substantially reduce the region’s risk of a demand-based energy blackout, according to a new study.
The report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national nonprofit that supports offshore wind, examines last winter’s actual wind speeds to determine how much energy they could produce.
If two wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts, Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, had been fully operational last winter, they would have reduced the risk of a demand-based power outage in New England by 55 percent, said lead author Susan Muller, senior energy analyst with the organization.
“And if you think about the shipments of [liquefied natural gas] that we often need to turn to in the winter, you can see how these could replace those shipments,” she said. “These are deliveries — local deliveries — instead of energy coming from other parts of the world.”
Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind are nearly complete. Both are among five offshore wind projects that received stop-work orders from the Trump administration in December. All have won court orders allowing work to proceed while their lawsuits against the administration play out.
Adding the proposed New England Wind 1 and SouthCoast Wind to the New England grid, combined with Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, would have reduced the risk of a demand-based outage by 75 percent, according to the report.
Controlled outages in response to peak usage are not common in New England, but the higher demand goes, the higher the risk.
ISO New England, the nonprofit corporation that operates the regional grid, said its forecasting shows New England should have enough power to meet demand this winter. That includes expected power from offshore wind.
In response to the stop-work order in December, ISO New England said delaying the wind farms would increase costs and the risk of a power interruption.
“These projects are particularly important to system reliability in the winter when offshore wind output is highest and other forms of fuel supply are constrained,” the grid operator said in a statement in December.
Muller said the new report shows winter winds off New England are strong and consistent.
“We would have had deliveries of 1,000 megawatts, constantly, for several days at a time, which is really, really valuable to the New England power system,” she said.
For supporters of offshore wind, the report helps illustrate the stakes as the Trump administration continues to fight the industry.
The administration contends that offshore wind farms interfere with radar and pose a risk to national security.
The idea of turbines interfering with radar isn’t new; a consortium of federal agencies posted a webinar series on the topic in 2020, during the first Trump administration.
The Department of Energy posted on its WINDExchange web platform that in most cases, conflicts between radar missions and wind farms have been resolved and allow them to coexist.
The U.S. Department of Defense was among several agencies that reviewed plans for the offshore wind projects before they received federal approval.
