The head of New England’s energy grid underscored the importance of offshore wind for the future of the region’s power supply during a congressional subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, emphasizing the impact of President Donald Trump administration’s early action to halt such efforts.
Thanks to new approaches in transmission system planning and better tools for quantifying risks in a quickly changing system, the short-term outlook for New England’s energy market and reliability is “generally favorable,” said Gordon Van Welie, president and chief executive officer of the Independent System Operator of New England, known as ISO-NE.
But, Van Welie also warned of “serious challenges” ahead.
On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order for a temporary halt in new or renewed offshore wind leases in all areas of the outer continental shelf. It also included a review of the federal government’s leasing and permitting process for existing wind projects.
While Maine Republicans have formally praised the action, even asking the president to go further by stopping all current offshore wind development, Van Welie said those actions have created uncertainty for the region’s energy future.
“The region, and the ISO, are counting on the addition of large quantities of offshore wind to maintain resource and energy adequacy,” Van Welie told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy during the discussion on grid reliability.
Offshore wind has been seen as a reliable and abundant source of domestic energy, Van Welie said. Maine alone is aiming to develop 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine by 2040.
Van Welie said the region will need these new resources to meet growing electricity demand, so it is important to have a policy and regulatory framework that will allow those resources to come online.
Additionally, the on-again, off-again tariffs Trump has imposed on Canada could affect both the price and availability of power in New England. Though it is unclear how the additional tax would apply to electricity, Van Welie said there could be reliability issues if electricity were to stop coming into the region from Canada.
The Natural Resources Council of Maine said Van Welie’s comments reinforce how essential offshore wind is for New England’s energy future.
“The strong, consistent winds off our coast will provide the large amount of energy we’ll need to power the future, while generating thousands of new jobs, protecting wildlife, and stimulating economic development up and down the coast,” said NRCM Climate and Clean Energy Director Jack Shapiro.
As Maine has set clean energy and climate goals, developing offshore wind as a power source has been at the crux of meeting those ambitions. The Governor’s Energy Office recently released a technical report showing that while it is possible to meet the state’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2040, wind and solar are key components of meeting increased electrification demands from plug-in cars and heating options.
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