1/ Lots of confusion yesterday as to what exactly this Biden EO meant for offshore wind. So here's my take: https://twitter.com/reNEWS_/status/1354706984302501890

2/ Most agree it can't mean doubling installed OSW capacity in federal waters, bc that would mean getting 12 MW installed in the next 10 years (the only installed OSW project in federal waters is Dominion's 12 MW Coastal Virginia pilot project, COD 2020).

3/ It would also be confusing if Biden meant doubling production in existing lease areas, bc that would require so unreasonable assumptions about turbine spacing and generator size (but I will come back to this bc technology will certainly affect how that doubling is achieved).

4/ For context, there are 15 active commercial OSW lease areas in federal waters, all of which are on the East Coast. These 15 lease areas are home to nearly 9 GW of contracted OSW projects under development and room for another 18-20 GW of future projects.

5/ The EO also certainly doesn't intend to increase state mandates/targets for procuring OSW for obvious reasons, but doing so would mean doubling existing targets from ~30 GW to 60 GW by 2030 (not an unreasonable assumption to make anyway).

6/ So what does it mean? As some have pointed out, the most obvious answer is that it means doubling the amount of acreage available in federal waters for OSW development. Now that's HUGE, but how huge?

7/ Those 15 active lease areas account for a whopping 1,742,252 acres. That sounds like a lot, but it's all relative. That's an area slightly larger than the great State of Delaware, but the OCS is an area of 1.7 billion acres, so OSW areas account for 0.10% of the OCS.

8/ The amount of capacity that can be deployed in existing areas. There is no uniform layout or spacing across lease areas outside of New England, turbine sizes are increasing rapidly, so depending on COD/siting, the resource potential of existing areas could increase.

9/ As of today, existing lease areas have between 0.012 (OCS-A 0486) to 0.026 (OCS-A 0512) MW of economic resource potential per acre (or 2.6-6.5 MW per km2). There is an upper limit to potential in existing areas bc some contracted projects have already selected turbines.

10/ Doubling the amount of acreage available for OSW development in federal waters would yield 3,484,504 acres, which at current avg. power density would yield approximately 63 GW of total OSW resource potential across federal lease areas, and that number could increase.

11/ The next question is, if it is a doubling of acreage, where will the additional 1.75 million acres be?

12/ BOEM has already identified and is actively assessing future leasing opportunities in 15 call areas off the coasts of NY/NJ, NC, SC, CA, and Hawaii. Those call areas span ~4.1 million acres.

13/ Call areas are studied in coordination with state-specific OSW task forces, and based on public/private stakeholder input, environmental/fishing/transit siting considerations, and commercial interest, BOEM will identify wind energy areas (WEAs) most suitable for development.

14/ The WEAs are then divided into lease areas which are auctioned off by BOEM. The last commercial lease auction was held in Dec 2018, through which Equinor, Mayflower Wind (Shell/EDPR), and Vineyard Wind (CIP/AGR) paid $405.1 million for a total of 388,569 acres ($1042/acre).

15/ The most anticipated wind energy areas that are also most likely to be auctioned are those in the New York Bight and those off the coast of California.

16/ The NY Bight includes four call areas, within which BOEM has already identified wind energy areas for further consideration and potential leasing. The two areas closest to Long Island are expected to be removed from consideration.

17/ The remaining primary and secondary areas in the Hudson North and Hudson South Area cover 731,071 acres, or about 42% of new acreage required. NY has requested that BOEM split these areas into 9 lease areas, which could accommodate as much as 12 GW of additional OSW capacity.

18/ It remains to be seen if BOEM decides to make all of these areas available for leasing, but the Biden Administration's EO and broader climate agenda make that increasingly likely. The auction for these areas could take place as early as later this year.

19/ If the NY Bight areas go at the same rate per acre as the last lease auction, the auction will yield $762 million in lease sales for the federal government. I expect that number to be even higher, as those areas would serve the two largest OSW markets in the US, NY & NJ.

20/ California is a bit of a different story. There are 3 WEAs, of which Humboldt and Morro Bay are considered the most likely to move forward to leasing. The Trump Admin tried to sabotage the advancement of these areas on Jan. 19, but the Biden Admin has since stopped that.

The Humboldt and Morro Bay WEAs cover 331,635 acres. These areas will require use of floating foundation technology, which will constrain power density due to siting and turbine size considerations. These areas could reasonably yield 2-4 GW of OSW.

The Diablo Canyon WEA is the largest in CA and covers 356,188 acres, but has raised substantial concerns by the US military, which conducts training exercises in the area. A deal b/t DOD and DOI has been floated, so there could be some portion of this area available for leasing.

New York and California can help the Biden Admin achieve at least 60% of the 2030 target. Between active call areas off of NC (185,185 acres), SC (989,088 acres), and Hawaii (485,000 acres), the doubling of acreage available for OSW development is reasonable and achievable.

23/ There are some who believe the Biden EO instead meant a doubling of proposed capacity in federal waters. There is no official proposed capacity for projects in federal waters, and as I said earlier, that number is a moving target that changes (what feels like) daily.

24/ The only way to realistically achieve the doubling of capacity is by leasing additional acreage. Leasing in federal waters is also something almost completely under the control of the executive branch, so it is something Biden can absolutely do.