ABB leads DOE-funded offshore wind grid interconnection study

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ABB will lead a comprehensive DOE-funded offshore wind grid interconnection study to evaluate wind energy resources and possibilities along all U.S. coastal regions. The team will investigate and evaluate critical technical and economic questions regarding offshore wind energy integration and a variety of transmission technologies, as well as regulatory issues.

The team ABB will head up includes AWS Truepower, Duke Energy, DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the University of Pittsburgh. ABB is well-equipped to lead the study. It has extensive experience in wind integration, high-voltage land and undersea cable and more. The global company now provides these technologies to the world's largest offshore wind farms.

The nuts and bolts of the study include:

·         staging of offshore wind development

·         applicability of integration study methods to offshore wind production

·         assessment of several wind collection and delivery technologies

·         regulatory issues that could influence the selection of technologies or implementation of systems

The study also will yield the technical and economic data needed to produce a roadmap to DOE's "20% Wind Energy by 2030" wind energy goals for the country. The initiative will help guide the drive to reach 54 gigawatts of deployed offshore wind generating capacity by that date. While offshore wind energy resources are vast, most wind energy production has been concentrated on land.

DOE's initiative will spend $43 million in 41 projects across 20 states over the next five years to accelerate technological innovations, cut costs and scale back the timeline for offshore wind energy deployment.

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