Last month’s Texas power grid collapse feels increasing symbolic as the Biden administration’s first stage energy transition plans gather momentum. The battles with pro-oil messengers’ misinformation campaigns such as those launched off the crisis in the Lone Star State will continue, as occasional Recharge columnist Mike Casey pointed out – and indeed renewable-energy’s voice needs to rise above the climate-denialist din.
In aid of that cause, the appointment this week of Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo – a forceful climate action advocate whose support helped build the first US offshore wind farm – was still more (clean) fuel to the greening of America coming in the wake of pro-renewables appointees energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and interior secretary Debra Haalan.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Rich Glick made clear how long a road is yet to be travelled in reaching net-zero in the country when he underlined on a panel at the historically hydrocarbon-centric CeraWeek that without more high-voltage transmission lines to transport renewable energy resources, the country was “not going to be able to get to [its decarbonisation] goals” ...
Still, the eventuality of a renewables-powered US was signalled again in very different ways last week, with Recharge reporting on number-crunching in North Carolina that concluded it was “well positioned” to take a large slice of the $140bn-plus market foreseen taking shape off the eastern seaboard, while over in Houston oil major energy transition laggard Chevron delved deeper into geothermal with a $25m investment in a Swedish firm that is investing in the sector.
Love or loathe Big Oil, there is no denying its growing influence in renewables, with developer Avangrid’s CEO, Dennis Arriola, even seeing a “good” in the challenge of competing with oilies in offshore wind as it is making them “sharpen their pencils”.
The Beaufort scale is being pushed ever-upward by the rising offshore wind markets around the world.
Among the standouts in Recharge coverage of the sector last week was Shell-Eneco development consortium CrossWind’s signing of a deal with European TSO TenneT to build the offshore grid connection for its giant Hollandse Kust Noord project in the Dutch North Sea, a farm that will feed electricity to over 1 million households, as well as delivering a large supply of energy to retail behemoth Amazon.
Meanwhile, a consortium led by Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi was tapped to run the grid link to the UK’s 1.2GW Hornsea 1 – the world’s largest operating offshore wind farm – in a deal that values the transmission assets at $1.7bn.
And across in Ireland, one of the nation’s largest infrastructure projects in a generation, the giant Codling offshore wind farm, started public consultation on development of the planned 1.5GW array, and a 1GW-scale floating wind-plus-wave project was launched by developer Simply Blue, potentially key ventures toward uncorking one of the world’s great untapped regional plays.
Speaking of floating wind and uncorking: latest figures from Quest FWE last week reported on exclusively by Recharge forecast more than 26GW turning by 2035, with the fleet expected to grow “exponentially” as the first wave of utility-scale developments now taking shape internationally are boosted by transitioning oil companies and ever-improving economics.
The memo seems to have been missed by Yosaka Shin’s team, with the commissioner of the agency for natural resources and energy at Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry telling Recharge at an International Energy Agency press briefing that the issues of “lack of land and deep seas … were still unresolved’.
This is widely out of step with domestic power giant Jeraand others such as construction giant Taisei which – along with many international energy developers – see floating on a fast-approaching horizon.
If analyst Wood Mackenzie's recent calculation that Japan, South Korea and Taiwan could unlock a 10GW-plus pipeline of floating wind projects by 2030 – bringing with it almost $60bn in investment to the region – doesn’t persuade some in Japan (or indeed a speech by our Editor-in-Chief at the Asia Offshore Wind conference), then perhaps Scotland’s plan to use offshore wind-powered green hydrogen in whisky production, with help from Iberdrola – might w(h)et their appetite.
Before you switch off tonight, Recharge recommends an evening read of our piece looking at Saudi Arabia's vision of using renewable hydrogen in concert with wind and solar power as a way to maintain its role as a “continuous, reliable energy supplier to the world”.
Then turn to its companion piece, an exclusive interview with Peter Terium, the man charged with building a 100%-green energy system in the Kingdom – from scratch and within 10 years – to power the $500bn Neom megacity. "Like building the pyramids", he tells us. Talkin’ ‘bout a revolution …