New York State has released its long-awaited Offshore Wind Master Plan, encompassing 20 in-depth studies on a variety factors that will affect the state’s ability to reach its 2.4GW offshore wind target by 2030 in a cost-effective manner – from ports and infrastructure, to anticipated jobs, to the most suitable mechanisms for procuring electricity.

Among the high-level conclusions put forward, New York's projections show that it will be cheaper to procure offshore wind than other large-scale renewables in the state by 2030 – meaning offshore wind will help to lower the cost of meeting the state’s 50% renewables target for 2030.

While many of the most important decisions regarding New York’s offshore wind programme remain to be taken, the Master Plan (overview here as a PDF) offers potential developers and investors a huge trove of new information and insight into the state’s thinking, and signposts for where things are likely to move from here.

For example, one 276-page study (PDF here) looks at the possibilities for New York’s ports and harbours to win work – including manufacturing – as the US offshore wind market takes shape. The state screened 65 port sites, breaking them down into three distinct geographies – New York Harbor, the Hudson River that stretches from New York City northward, and coastal Long Island.

Long Island, the report concludes, will likely prove better suited to O&M work than to manufacturing, given its shallow navigable depths and other physical constraints.

But the study flags up a handful of sites “of particular interest” for manufacturing, including two in New York City (Red Hook-Brooklyn and the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal) and two farther up the Hudson River (the Port of Coeymans and the Port of Albany-Rensselaer).

New York will be competing against Massachusetts, Maryland and other states for offshore wind manufacturing, and even the Empire State's best sites have challenges, the study notes. The sites in Brooklyn and those farther up the Hudson, for instance, are all located upriver from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island. The vertical clearance for vessels sailing below the bridge would require some components to be transported horizontally – rather than vertically as is typically done in Europe.

Going forward, New York plans to engage with top- and lower-tier offshore wind manufacturers as it continues to study the ports issue. All told, New York believes it could see 5,000 offshore wind jobs created by the late 2020s, including 2,000 in manufacturing.

Another study within the Master Plan does a deep dive on possible procurement mechanisms for future power – one of the key outstanding questions for offshore wind developers, including Statoil, which already holds the rights to a huge zone south of Long Island.

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After analysing seven options, the state concludes that its existing mechanism for procuring large-scale onshore renewables – what it calls a fixed REC – is probably not ideal for offshore wind, as the lack of a hedge adds risk for developers, which translates into a higher cost of capital.

The study (PDF here) recommends that regulators closely consider five other options, including utility-owned projects, in which developers would sell completed projects to rate-regulated utilities, and an indexed OREC, which would offer developers a substantial hedge against future electricity price swings, and thus lower their cost of capital.

To get the market moving in the near term, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently called for the procurement of 800MW of offshore wind in two solicitations to be held in 2018 and 2019. The Master Plan suggests the state develop its market in two phases – the first focused on these two early solicitations, and then a second phase for the more mature market of the future, which may come with substantial policy changes.

The package of studies and policy options has been formally submitted to New York's Public Service Commission for consideration.

"The New York Offshore Wind Master Plan is an unprecedented, nation-leading effort that lays the foundation right here in New York for a new American industry,” says Joe Martens, director of the New York State Offshore Wind Alliance, an industry group.

New York is counting on co-operation from the federal US government to build its offshore wind market, and recent signs there have been positive, in part given President Donald Trump’s focus on cutting red tape and speeding approvals for infrastructure and energy projects.

In his most glowing remarks to date regarding offshore wind, Ryan Zinke, Trump’s secretary of the interior, earlier this month called the untapped US offshore wind resource a “tremendous asset” and said it will play a “big role” in the country's energy future.