Before the turbines can begin turning on the 80,000 acres slated for offshore wind farms in Maryland, U.S. Wind, the U.S. subsidiary of Italian renewable energy company Renexia, will need to survey the ocean floor to determine the best places to install them.
Renexia won the August 2014 auction for the two Maryland sites, located about 15 miles offshore, with a bid of $8.7 million. The company expects to invest $2.5 billion overall on the project, according to the press release announcing the results of the auction. The zone is estimated to be able to produce between 850 to 1,450 megawatts of power, but the company plans to start with 500, according to the same release.
The turbines are expected to power 300,000 homes.
The Shearwater, a 110-foot former Coast Guard vessel, has been outfitted by U.S. Wind to serve as a geophysical acoustic survey vessel, Bill Wall, technical operations director of U.S. Wind, said.
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2 comments:
So Italy will profit from our wind area -- that's absurd.
James Mathias says this scoping mission is not costing ratepayers but he neglects to tell us how much it is costing taxpayers.
Offshore wind energy costs eight times more than conventional energy. Onshore wind costs 3 times, and solar is even worse. Maybe the media could run a story about this. Most of the cost of renewables is hidden because it is heavily subsidized and polluters pay for the energy produced so they can get RECs and continue to pollute. Just ask Google and Microsoft.
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