Florida legislators are moving to ban all wind power from the state, including offshore, despite lack of interest from industry or government in development off either its Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico coasts.
Versions of the bill before both the Florida Senate and House of Representatives would prohibit “the construction, operation, or expansion of a wind energy facility or an offshore wind energy facility in this state.”
The ban would extend to “buildings, structures, or electrical transmission cabling to be sited on state submerged lands or territorial waters or connected to corresponding onshore substations.”
The bill's sponsor, representative Paul Renner, Republican, told local media that a ban is needed to protect the state's vital tourism and real estate industries.
“I think it’s very similar to offshore drilling. Floridians don’t want to sit on the beach and look at oil derricks, and they don’t want to sit on the beach and look at big windmills,” he said.
Concern over tourism and coastal property valueshave galvanised opposition to the sector in its heartland in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states of Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.
Distress over the sector's potential impact on local marine environments, particularly amid a rash of whale strandings last year, is also spurring the legislation.
“Let’s stop offshore wind until we can make sure it doesn’t disrupt the sonar of our whales,” Florida state senator Jay Collins told local media.
Any proposed ban notwithstanding, the state lacks wind power generation due to slow wind speeds and threat of frequent hurricanes.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates Florida's offshore wind speeds at between 5-6.9 metres per second (m/s), below the 7m/s typically required for commercial development.
Federal offshore energy regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) looked into development in the state's Atlantic seaboard in the 2000s and 2010s but stopped all activity by 2014.
BOEM's wind energy areas up for development in the Gulf of Mexico don't extend eastward to encompass Florida either.
“We expect the ban on offshore wind in state waters to have minimal effect, given the low wind resource in proximity to Florida's shorelines, and the natural geography of the coastline,” said Julia Pendelton, managing director for industry advocacy group Southeastern Wind Coalition.
Florida is the US' third most populous state and generates some three quarters of its power needs through natural gas, with little more than 4% generated by solar in 2022, according to the Energy Information Agency (IEA). The remainder is primarily coal (6%) and nuclear (12%).
Despite the dependency on fossil power and vulnerability to global climate change, Florida Republicans are also pushing to ease permitting requirements for natural gas pipelines.
While Florida might not go in for wind power, the US' largest wind turbine manufacturer GE has a major plant in Pensacola on the Gulf Coast.
Power holding company NextEra, the global leader in solar and wind power generation, is likewise based in Juno Beach, on Florida's Atlantic Ocean coast.
