VIVA LA REVOLUTION? WIND ENERGY IN THE GULF OF MEXICO
Introduction1
The story of offshore wind energy development in the United States is short in time but rich in detail…. Once upon a time (in 2001) a developer proposed the first offshore wind farm in the United States to be about 5 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. That Cape Wind project ended 17 years later when the developer withdrew without building a single turbine. While that project ended badly, it was not the end of offshore wind energy. Instead, offshore wind farms are at the beginning of their story. The Gulf of Mexico’s tale of wind energy began in 2021.
Spoiler
For those who like to turn to the last page to see how the story ends, here it is: big offshore wind farms are coming to Texas. There is a plot twist – those wind farms are not where the lease sales were held in 2023 and 2024. It is a very Texas tale wind farm developers are bucking the system.
The Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM) carefully outlined the plot, spending years assessing which sites were best for wind farms. In 2023 it offered leases near Galveston, Texas or Lake Charles, Louisiana (with no bids on the Galveston area), and it tried again in 2024 with no bids made. That would make Texas offshore wind a short story. However, two developers want to build northeast of Corpus Christi instead of where BOEM’s lease sales were held (see Map 1). That project came about by a petition to BOEM by Hecate Energy in February 2024. A second energy producer, Invenergy, submitted an Indication of Interest in those sites, anticipating producing energy in 2035.
1
The choice of this area should not be a complete surprise. The Department of Energy identified the westernmost Gulf of Mexico as the place in the Gulf with the highest average wind speeds. In fact, windspeeds near Corpus Christi average about 10 percent higher than in the more northern wind energy areas (WEAs). Roughly speaking, each revolution of a turbine produces enough energy to power a home for two days, so the more revolutions, the better.
This spoiler has a spoiler. The Southern Shrimp Alliance called on BOEM to withdraw one of the two Corpus Christi areas from wind development due to the harm to shrimping. Thus, the conclusion is still being written, but here is how it works.
General Information on Wind Turbines
Wind turbines are measured by the diameter of their rotors (the blades that turn), the height of the hub (the center point of those blades), and by the amount of energy they produce (measured in megawatts (MW), for now). The first U.S. offshore wind farm to generate electricity was the Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island which began operating in December 2016. Block Island’s 5 turbines have a hub height of 360 ft, a rotor diameter of 328 ft. It is a 30 MW facility. Newer farms produce almost 100 times as much electricity due to bigger turbines and more of them.
The technology for the turbines continues to improve. For example, in 2016 the average hub height of a turbine offshore was 328 ft (23 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty), producing 6 MW. It is anticipated that the hub height in 2035 will be 495 ft, and those turbines will produce 17 MW each.
The turbines sit on bases. A monopile version (one post) has a base between 5-8 meters across. Another base style is the jacket which has Eiffel Tower-style framework.
Wind farms also include at least one offshore substation platform which receives electricity from each turbine via underground cables known as inter-array cables. Substations have transformers to convert the alternating current (AC) electricity from the turbines into direct current (DC) for transmission to shore.2
The electricity is sent via underground “export” cables to an onshore substation, a step known as offtaking, to convert the electricity back to AC. The electricity is then sent to the energy grid.
A contract for purchasing electricity is negotiated at the time a project is planned, meaning construction delays can make those prices no longer profitable for the developer. Then wind farm contracts can take a bad turn, if you will. Developers in at least four states on the Atlantic Coast sought to renegotiate the price contracts, known as power purchase agreements. New York and Massachusetts reportedly refused to renegotiate, leaving the companies the choice of accepting the rates or paying to cancel the contract.3 In contast, the legislatures in the states of Rhode Island and
2 According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “direct current is more stable [and] companies are finding ways of using high voltage direct current (HVDC) to transport electricity long distances with less electricity loss.” Allison Lantero, The War of the Currents: AC v. DC Power, U.S. DOE (Nov. 18, 2014).
3 Bruce Mohl, New York Rejects Bid to Renegotiate Offshore Wind Contracts, CommonWealth Beacon (Oct. 12, 2023).
Maryland4 changed state law to allow revised pricing for offshore wind energy, even if it could mean abovemarket rates for consumers. The Rhode Island rate issue went to the state Supreme Court.5
U.S. Wind Energy
Offshore Wind Farm
Source: BOEM
In March 2021, President Biden announced a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW, a GW is 1,000 MW) in offshore wind farms by the year 2030. According to the announcement, those farms would power more than 10,000,000 homes, avoiding 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. According to Reuters, the United States will not meet that target by 2030, although it may catch up later. The Department of Energy identified 52.687 GW of projects at some stage in the development process as of May 31, 2023, but this number includes 5.0389 GW in areas not yet leased and another 20.978 GW still in the permitting process.
In addition to missing its own goals, the United States is behind many countries, both in the quantity and capability of its offshore wind farms. China is said to lead the world, constructing 71 percent of the world’s offshore wind capacity in 2023, totaling 6.3 GW, which is the equivalent of 6,300 MW; its total capacity jumped 24 percent from 2022. Europe also had a record year in 2023, installing 3.8 GW of offshore wind (3,800 MW), half of which was off the coast of the Netherlands. One such producer was a Haliade-X turbine which began operations in 2023 off of the United Kingdom, said to produce 12 MW alone.
LawandRegulations
Every good story needs a conflict. Often that friction is related to the federal, state, and local regulatory agencies each with roles in siting, transmission, electricity contracts, and environmental reviews. An entity seeking to develop wind energy must comply with “a slew of federal statutes designed to protect the environment, promote public safety, and preserve historic and archeological resources on the outer continental shelf.” Additionally, siting and constructing these facilities are technologically complicated. All of this to say, these projects take time and generate strong feelings.
BureauofOceanEnergyManagement
The federal actor in all of this is BOEM, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior. BOEM manages energy development in federal waters, sometimes described as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) or the outer
4 See H.B. 1296 (2024); Maryland Stat. Ch. 431. See also, Maryland Governor Signs Offshore Wind Bill into Law, Bayside Gazette (May 23, 2024) (“ ‘…under HB 1296 the project gets bigger and the price [of energy to consumers] goes up,’ “ according to Tony DeLuca, Ocean City (MD) Councilman).
5 See R.I. Stat. § 39-26.1-7 (as amended in 2010 to allow long term contracts with commercially reasonable rates for renewable energy production, amending the 2009 version to address Block Island project); See also In re Proposed Town of New Shoreham Project, 25 A.3d 492 (R.I. 2011) (state supreme court upheld Public Utilities Commission’s ruling that Block Island wind farm’s rates were commercially reasonable under the 2010 amendment, when the Commission had described the 2009 version as a ratepayer subsidy).
continental shelf. It’s an area that extends 200 nautical miles (nm) from shore but does not include state waters. (Both Florida and Texas have the rights up to 9 nm off their shores in the Gulf as ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court, but the other states’ waters end at 3 nm.)
The fundamental authorizing legislation for offshore energy development is the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act from 1953. It was amended by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, expanding BOEM’s management authority to include renewable energy projects in federal waters.
Source: NREL
BOEM’sLeasingProcess
Leasing areas for wind energy follows the same general steps as leasing for gas and oil development. BOEM identifies Wind Energy Areas (WEAs) after assessing cultural, environmental, and practical impacts, such as protected resources, oil and gas developments, defense needs, commercial vessel traffic lanes, and high fishing areas.
BOEM publishes an announcement in the Federal Register identifying areas for lease. Leases of blocks of those areas are awarded following an auction. The winning leaseholder still must obtain BOEM approval for exploration, site planning, and construction plans.
Each step involves an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a statute requiring a careful evaluation of the environmental impacts of a project and alternatives to that project, while making the review public. Other federal agencies are involved. For example, to install the array and exporting cables the wind farm developer must get a dredge and fill permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act. The Corps also issues what is called a Section 10 permit under the Rivers and Harbors Act to approve anchoring the turbines to the sea floor. Clean Air Act and other Clean Water Act permits are issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. And, as will be discussed later, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must assess impacts to fish and protected wildlife. These permits and assessments all are addressed within BOEM’s NEPA review.
Wind Energy Feasibility in the Gulf of Mexico
Texas produced 28 percent of the country’s wind-sourced power in 2023 – the most wind energy of any U.S. state. All of that is on land, however. The Gulf of Mexico has no offshore wind farms. Yet.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the U.S. Department of Energy assessed areas in the Gulf of Mexico to identify good offshore wind locations. Its report described the pros of wind energy in the Gulf: the water is relatively shallow, the climate is mild, and there’s existing energy infrastructure. The cons are: softer subsurface soils that make substructure construction more expensive; lower average wind speeds; and, oh right, hurricanes. (According to BOEM, insurance rates are ratcheted up 25% due to storms in the Gulf.)
The study found sites in the Western Gulf were within the margin of error to be economically viable. Sites in Pascagoula, Mississippi; Pensacola, Florida; and Panama City, Florida were discarded from consideration.
In 2023, three Wind Energy Areas in the Gulf of Mexico were chosen for leasing, each having about 100,000 acres: the Lake Charles area, and two near areas Galveston (Galveston I and Galveston II). See Map 2. The areas are divided into 9-mile blocks, but wind farms will not occupy every square foot. Some blocks were removed from leasing for having mid-to-high levels of impacts on shrimping. Additionally, BOEM gave notice to potential bidders that a lease might be modified to provide transit corridors to fishing grounds.
The lease auction took place in August 2023, but only the Lake Charles WEA was bid on and by only two bidders. The $5.6 million winning bid was made by a company hoping to generate 1.24 gigawatts of offshore wind energy, according to BOEM. In March 2024 BOEM announced a second lease sale within WEAs near Galveston and Lake Charles, however, nobody placed a bid.
Map 2, showing leases within WEAs I and M were offered in the 2023 lease sale. Leases within WEAs I, J, and K (the latter three not shown) were offered in the 2024 lease sale. See 89 Fed. Reg. 20234 (March 21, 2024).
Despite the cool interest in Texas offshore wind energy, in early 2024 BOEM received an unsolicited application from Hecate Energy to build a 3 GW wind farm offshore of Texas. The project would not be in the WEAs mentioned above but for sites east-northeast of Corpus Christi, see Map 1, WEA D and WEA C. BOEM sought input to see if competitive bidding were needed, and a second company expressed an interest.
Hecate’s proposal included 133 turbines. The other developer interested in the site, Invenergy, indicated it would build a 2.5 GW facility. Either project requires multiple offshore transmission substations.
Viewshed of Potential Wind Farms
Green Energy
in South Texas
Humans can see the horizon 3 miles away
Port Lavaca is 51 miles from closest edge of WEA D
Port Aransas is 58 miles from closest edge of WEA C
While offshore wind produces less CO2 than land-based wind or any other renewable energy source and fewer greenhouse gases than coal or natural gas, it still has environmental impacts. Rather than green energy, it more fairly is called renewable energy. Some environmental groups challenge wind projects for their adverse impacts on marine mammals, birds, sea turtles, fish, and aesthetic and cultural resources.
MarineMammalProtectionAct
Much of the concern regarding wind farm construction is focused on potential harm to cetaceans – whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Noise impacts are the primary concern, including noises from the geophysical surveys which use sonar airguns to map the seafloor, and construction phase noise, which includes pile driving for turbine foundations. Vessel strikes during construction and maintenance are also a concern.
Exploration for wind farms uses high frequency sonar just as for gas and oil platforms. This geophysical testing adversely affects marine mammals, although the extent of the harm is disputed. The American Petroleum Industry and others stated that such testing had occurred for years without significant impacts to cetaceans: there is no scientific evidence that geophysical survey activities have caused adverse consequences to marine mammal stocks or populations, and that are no known instances of injury to individual marine mammals as a result of such surveys.6
6 NMFS, Final Regulation: Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys Related to Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico, 86 Fed. Reg. 5322, 5333 (Jan. 19, 2021) (as summarized by NMFS).
Construction noise is also an issue. The source level for pile driving is 191.6 dB.7 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) guidance suggests permanent hearing loss occurs between 183-219 dB for baleen whales, while for dolphins, the range is 185-230 dB. NOAA puts the threshold for “behavioral harassment” (rather than hearing loss) at 160 dB.8
Both the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA) make it illegal to harm protected cetaceans. However, both laws allow projects to harm protected animals when that injury is incidental to an otherwise lawful activity and does not have a significant impact on the species’ population. This is known as an incidental take. The National Marine Fisheries Service within NOAA issues a type of permit for an incidental take under these laws when marine species are at issue.
Impacts to the Rice’s whale in the Gulf of Mexico must be assessed, as fewer than 100 of this endangered species are believed to exist. Other ESA-listed marine mammals in the Gulf include sperm whales, fin whales, and sei whales. In 2020 NMFS found that oil and gas leasing activity in the Gulf could jeopardize the continued existence of Rice’s whales – known as a “jeopardy opinion.” This rare conclusion means if not modified, the proposed action could cause the species to go extinct. To avoid the harm, NMFS advised reasonable and prudent measures, such as while in the whale’s habitat reducing ship speeds to 10 knots, having an observer on vessels, and limiting the trips at night. A federal court vacated the BiOp in August 2024 for violating the ESA. Rice’s whales appear to travel throughout the Gulf but favor depths between 100 m and 400 m, but there is still much to learn about that species. The proposed Gulf of Mexico wind farms are at depths less than 60m.
LegalChallengestoPermittedTakesofProtectedSpecies
Every chapter of this saga has a lawsuit. However, challenges to the incidental take permits for marine mammals from wind farm exploration and construction along the Atlantic coast typically did not succeed.9 For example, in April 2024, the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a challenge to NMFS’s conclusion that 102
7 See 89 Fed. Reg. at 52238.
8 See 89 Fed. Reg. 52222, 52228 (June 21, 2024).
9 See, e.g. Oceans v. U.S. Department of the Interior, 2024 WL 3104945 (D.D.C. June 24, 2024) (challenge to Revolution Wind near Rhode Island dismissed for lack of standing); Nantucket Residents Against Turbines v. U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 100 F.4th 1 (1st Cir. 2024) (upholding NOAA and BOEM’s conclusions regarding impacts on northern right whale’s recovery); Save Long Beach Island v. U.S. Department of Commerce, 2024 WL 863428 (D.N.J. Feb. 29, 2024) (no standing to raise claims of harm to marine mammals from windfarms off of New York and New Jersey).
days of pile driving would cause only a “negligible impact” on the endangered Northern Right Whale. NMFS had determined that the whales:
may temporarily abandon their activities while swimming away from the noise, temporarily avoid the project area, and experience a temporary hearing impairment. But exposure to pile-driving noise would not impact any essential behavioral patterns or annual rates of recruitment and survival, nor would any right whale be injured or killed.
SeaTurtles
Sea turtles are protected under the ESA, and projects that may adversely impact the species must also obtain an incidental take statement from NMFS. There are five species of protected turtles in the Gulf of Mexico:
Kemp’s Ridley, Leatherback, Hawksbill, Loggerhead, and Green. NMFS has proposed adding critical habitat for the green sea turtle the high tide line on shore to where the water reaches 20 m for the whole Gulf. The two WEAs near Corpus Christi are planned to begin at ~28 m. However, the digging and filling for the export cables will cross this habitat. Also, as waters warm due to climate change, sea turtles may head to deeper, cooler waters to get their food.
A court held that NMFS’ biological opinion on the Cape Wind Farm’s impacts to sea turtles accurately concluded that the project “was likely to adversely affect but was not likely to jeopardize” the turtles. The agency calculated 13-28 sea turtles would experience “acoustic harassment” during sonar testing and another 390-910 turtles during pile driving (i.e. 3-7 turtles per turbine).
MitigationtoAvoidHarmingCetaceansandSeaTurtles
Mitigation measures for construction noise could include the following:
monitoring the area using acoustics to detect whales and dolphins;
beginning pile-driving slowly using lower impacts at first to give animals time to swim away (known as a “soft start” procedure);
posting observers;
requiring shutdowns when species are within the acoustic zones; and
using bubble curtains to help mute noises.
WindEnergyFarmImpactsonFishing
Folks who fish – recreationally or commercially – have contested offshore wind farms. The MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act) requires state and federal agencies to identify when a planned project might adversely affect Essential Fish Habitat. According to a NOAA study, windfarms “can have population-level effects” on a regional scale to the biological community at the
seabed and around the turbines. Concerns include impacts from noise, increased sedimentation, and changed hydrodynamics due to the foundations and wakes created by the turbines. The science is still being written. NOAA is funding studies to see how fish react to windfarms. In one such study by The Nature Conservancy, fish are tagged before the windfarm begins operation, with their movements recorded for six months. Then team installed acoustic hydrophones to monitor noises from the windfarm once operational, studying whether the tagged fishes’ movement changed in relation to the noise. However, as NOAA Fisheries wrote in 2023: “there are no known empirical studies on potential effects of [offshore wind] on primary and secondary producers within the [United States]….” Regarding shellfish, NOAA Fisheries stated that “no studies have taken place specifically addressing changes in abundance or distribution of clams or scallops relating to [offshore wind].”
Another concern is that wind farms will interrupt fishing routes. On the other hand, offshore wind turbines could serve as fish aggregating devices, as have some offshore oil and gas structures, making open access to those areas important.
For the (failed) 2024 lease sale near Galveston, BOEM had added two ways to aid fishing interests. First, as mentioned, certain blocks were removed from potential development to protect shrimping. Second, BOEM offered a bid incentive of 8 percent for companies who would contribute finan-
cially a fisheries compensation mitigation fund (which the company may have to create) to offset potential negative impacts to commercial and for-hire recreational fisheries.10
In its comments to BOEM on the Corpus Christi wind development, the Southern Shrimp Alliance described the shrimp fishery as the “most valuable fishery in the Gulf,” and asked the agency to withdraw WEA D as it
10 89 Fed. Reg. at 20241, 20243-45. The compensation fund must address direct losses to gear and to fishing income due to the lease areas. However, the compensation may be made as late as five years after the lease.
posed “an unacceptably high degree of conflict with shrimp fishing operations,” and to modify WEA C. The agency’s surveys identify shrimp trawling routes, in which vessels drag nets along the sea floor. These routes tend to be in the shallower parts of the lease areas between 34-40 m although they can be found in deeper waters, too. See Map 3. The Southern Shrimp Alliance contended that BOEM failed to account for at least half of all shrimpers those not using electronic logbooks.
Fishers are concerned about fishing bans around windfarms, preventing them from using gear near the turbines. The erratic waters near the turbines can lead to gear snags. Reportedly, fishers in the United Kingdom are advised to stay 60 yards from a turbine to avoid tangling their gear. Fishing vessels also may have issues with radar capabilities when within a windfarm due to electromagnetic fields.
CablesandElectromagneticEnergy
The conversion of the energy from individual turbines (AC power) to DC power and the subsequent transmission of that energy emits an electromagnetic field. It is unclear whether this impacts marine species, with a NOAA Fisheries report stating “the effects of EMF emissions from high voltage [offshore windfarm] cables on electrically and magnetically sensitive marine fishers are largely unknown.” The report said that certain species could detect electromagetic fields from wind projects which “could interfere with local field orientation and foraging behavior.” In other words, the fish might not navigate or eat as well. This may especially impact sharks and rays, which use electromagnetic sensors to hunt and migrate. As the turbine bases mimic reefs, certain species may spend a greater time near the sources of the EMF.
Another question is whether the energy releases cause a direct physical harm. That is not clear. The NOAA Fisheries report stated “there are presently no thresholds indicating acceptable or unacceptable levels of EMF emissions in the marine environment.” However, the environmental documents for the Sunrise Wind Farm offshore of Massachusetts, concluded that the emissions from buried cables were lower than reported thresholds for either magnetosensitive fish or electrosensitive fish
In addition to possible electromagnetic or thermal exposure, the underground cables pose other issues such as:
increased sedimentation due to seafloor disturbance;
crushing, burial, and entrainment of fish and invertebrates; and
heat from the cables.
Birds
The Gulf of Mexico is home to three of the country’s four migrating pathways, with “billions” of birds flying along the Western Gulf. Also, Texas offers significant habitat for coastal birds. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) makes it illegal to injure or kill any of over 1,000 species of birds in the United States. However, the courts dispute whether federal agencies are subject to the law and also whether the law applies to incidental takes. One district court in reviewing an offshore wind project held that BOEM did not violate the MBTA “by merely approving a project that, if ultimately constructed, might result in the taking of migratory birds.”
-footed albatross. Credit: Dan Cushing, USFWS
The frequency of bird collisions with onshore wind turbines is studied and documented, but the data for offshore strikes are unknown. According to one study, effective risk models provide helpful estimates of bird
strike frequencies. Flight diverters have been installed on power lines to make them more visible to birds to reduce strikes. Similarly, researchers are assessing how flight diverters on wind turbines could limit harm to birds, but it is new technology.
A team of researchers designed monitors to see how wind turbines can coexist with birds. The team placed cameras on top of turbines to detect which bird species fly close to the blades. The systems provide data on bird contacts as well as record noises of approaching birds. The goal is to develop technology to pause wind turbines automatically when birds are nearby. Other research includes studying radar data to assess the flight patterns of migrating birds and bats across the Gulf to estimate their height and patterns.
AestheticandCultural Harm
The first planned offshore wind farm in federal waters was the Cape Wind project. The story of Cape Wind is long, winding, and full of intrigue. The saga does not end with a wind farm, but concluded after 17 years of litigation, including over the impacted viewshed (what people can see, or more importantly, cannot see).
According to an undated letter from the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, 33 historic and culture properties would “be indirectly adversely affected by the proposed Cape Wind project,” not by causing physical damage, but by negatively impacting the views from those properties. Notably, five of those properties were traditional cultural properties.
The 130-turbine wind farm would be 5.5 miles from Martha’s Vineyard and 11 miles from Nantucket, Massachusetts. Thus, the top of at least one 440-ft turbine could be spotted from 50 percent of the two islands; however, only 4.4 percent of residential areas and just 0.02 percent of recreation areas would see an entire tower. The years-long consultation over the viewshed impacts was terminated without an agreement among the parties. On April 28, 2010, Department of the Interior issued a decision to advance the project, concluding the NEPA and NHPA reviews. Other lawsuits continued. After dozens of lawsuits across 17 years, Cape Wind Associates walked away from its lease in 2018.
Conclusion
The next chapter in offshore wind development in the Gulf of Mexico is being written. Impacts to protected resources of the Gulf, including birds, marine mammals, sea turtles, and fish, will be weighed by BOEM and other permitting agencies. The public has the right to scrutinize this next step, and early comments to the start of a windfarm near Corpus Christi reveal an interest in and concerns about this form of renewable energy.