Is offshore wind energy coming to the Central Coast? ‘The momentum is here’
The Tribune hosted a panel discussion on Nov. 19 to address the potential development of floating wind turbines in the Pacific Ocean off California’s Central Coast.
The wide-ranging conversation touched upon everything from the decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to the impacts an offshore wind farm might have on marine life and the infrastructure needed to ensure the massive development brings local economic benefits and jobs.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has officially designated a 376-square-mile area of the ocean off San Luis Obispo County’s coast — about 20 miles west of Cambria and San Simeon — for the proposed wind energy development.
If fully built out, it could bring 2.9 gigawatts of electricity to California, contributing toward state and federal clean energy goals.
Panelists for The Tribune discussion were Central Coast Congressman Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), BOEM Pacific Regional Director Doug Boren, California Energy Commissioner Karen Douglas, REACH CEO Melissa James and Ben Ruttenberg, director of Cal Poly’s Center for Coastal Marine Sciences
Here are some of the subjects covered during the hour-and-a-half-long panel, edited for length and clarity.
Q: Why the Central Coast? What makes our coast attractive for this massive development?
A: Doug Boren: The Central Coast area has some good winds that can support an economic project moving forward. The Central Coast also brings with it the Morro Bay Power Plant and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant — some existing transmission infrastructure that’s there for these projects to have access to the grid so they can sell the power.
Q: Does the Central Coast have any advantages over the proposed site for floating offshore wind energy development in Humboldt County?
A: Boren: I think that the transmission infrastructure onshore is an advantage for the Central Coast.
Q: We hear that this project will produce nearly three gigawatts of electricity. What does that mean for our electricity grid and powering our homes?
A: Karen Douglas: Three gigawatts is a large amount of electricity and it would represent a really substantial project and step forward as we look at meeting our goals. We have, though, in the state, very significant renewable energy and climate goals.
We’re looking at a very significant scale-out of solar, of storage, onshore resources, out of state resources. In the broad statewide modeling that we did, we allow the model to consider up to 10 gigawatts of offshore wind and the model wanted all 10 gigawatts.
So it’s very clear that offshore wind could play an important role in meeting our goals and in helping us meet those goals cost effectively.
Q: Because this is wind energy — what happens when the wind is not blowing?
A: Ben Ruttenberg: (With offshore wind energy), power production starts to increase in the late afternoon and early evenings, particularly in the spring and summer, right around the time that solar production starts to kick off as the sun goes down.
Pre-pandemic, we’d all go out to work, come home and in the late afternoon, get home and flip on a whole bunch of appliances — really increasing that demand for electricity. So, conveniently, it looks like offshore wind energy power production increases around that time. That should help us meet some of the (energy demand) gap that we see, at least with respect to other renewables like solar.
Q: Diablo Canyon Power Plant is scheduled to go fully offline in 2025. Will offshore wind energy be here in time to replace it?
A: Salud Carbajal: When (the decommissioning) commences, we need to move as fast as we can with a sense of urgency, not only to make sure that we mitigate some of those jobs but to address the climate crisis and to make sure that we are meeting our state and federal goals for renewable energy.
We’ve become dependent on fossil fuels. And it’s going to be a transition, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But we need to have a sense of urgency because the climate crisis is an urgent matter — and the decommissioning is an urgent matter. ...
We need to do everything possible to move forward expeditiously. And I’m doing everything I can, certainly with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that the president signed (Nov. 15), with the Build Back Better Act that the House approved (Nov. 19) and will now go to the Senate.
There are major, transformational investments to address climate change and to invest in renewable energy infrastructure. I’m confident that the groundwork has been laid to get us moving and the momentum is here with us.
A: Boren: From a BOEM perspective, we have a timeline and we’re moving to a lease sale in the fall of 2022. We expect to meet that timeline. ...
On the federal government side ... we’re making sure that we get full coverage from the environmental review side, but making it as efficient as possible so that we can meet some of these timelines. ...
One of the administration’s goals is 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. And that’s East Coast and West Coast. So there’s a lot of ways we’re looking to improve efficiency so that we can meet that goal for the administration.
A: Douglas: From my vantage point on the Energy Commission ... we’re in the middle of an energy transition. We’re also in the middle of a climate crisis where we’re seeing impacts in terms of heatwaves, impacts in terms of wildfires, and how that affects the transmission system.
The electricity system is changing. ... And we’re looking at a transformation in terms of infrastructure and in terms of where we get our energy. ...
The upcoming decommissioning of Diablo Canyon will remove electricity from our grid and it is carbon-free electricity.
From the state level, we’re looking hard at just making sure that we have projects in line to provide the reliability that California needs and also keep us on a path to meeting our greenhouse gas and climate goals.
I don’t think our expectation is that renewable energy from offshore wind farms would be there to immediately replace the Diablo Canyon resource. We are moving this forward as fast as we reasonably can, while also obviously having an inclusive process and talking to stakeholders and looking at environmental impacts and trying to do a really solid job all around.
Q: REACH recently released an economic study that showed the development of offshore wind on the Central Coast could bring hundreds of jobs and millions in economic benefits.
A: Melissa James: If we have about three gigawatts of offshore wind and we have jobs associated with that, it’s about $262 million in annual economic impact and approximately 650 jobs paying about $90,000 a year — just for the ongoing operations and maintenance of the offshore wind industry. ...
Those jobs show up every day on land — before they’re making their way to operate, maintain the offshore wind farm — at some sort of a clean energy port. And so there’s been some discussion here within our region about how we can add to the supporting infrastructure with urgency to meet the offshore wind goals that we have for three gigawatts.
We already know we have the transmission infrastructure. We already know that we have a site that has been identified as premier for offshore wind development, and ... we also have an energy workforce here on the Central Coast that has been working in the industry for a long time with the skills to transition and be a part of a new future industry.
To put those numbers in comparison, it’s on par with Diablo (Canyon Power Plant). The annual economic impact being a little more than what Diablo generates annually, the jobs generation is a little bit less. The economic benefit through taxes is about the same as well.
So when you think about the opportunity that offshore wind could have to the Central Coast, in terms of jobs and economic benefit, it’s significant. There are certainly some steps we need to take as a community in partnership with the state and federal government to realize those opportunities here.
Q: Can you explain the wind port? Where would it go?
A: James: The answer to that question has to be done through rigorous, technical and feasibility analysis ... to really be able to understand that.
There is a bipartisan coalition of community leaders that are behind seeing that feasibility study done. The congressman is at the forefront of that, our local assemblyman, our senator, the county Board of Supervisors in June passed a resolution saying “We want to support the offshore wind industry into our region and we want to see this feasibility study conducted so that we can understand in our community. Is there something that we should be doing to help deploy offshore wind off our coasts?”
The feasibility study for a clean energy port is the first step in that process.
Looking at the East Coast, who’s a little ahead of us here on the West Coast, there you see in national news all the time the investments that are being made into port infrastructure. What we’re seeing is that it’s really a network of ports that are supporting the development of an industry and what we’re looking at now — we, I should say, the state and federal government — is what is the core infrastructure that we have on our coastline? How can that be utilized? Where are the gaps? Where do we need to invest and develop more infrastructure to support that?
From the community perspective, we’re saying, “We want to be a part of this clean energy revolution and offshore wind. And if there’s something that we can be doing on the infrastructure side, to support the deployment and to bring jobs and economic opportunity to our region, we want to do that.”
A: Carbajal: The way I see it is these are two complimentary concurrent efforts.
One is to bring about offshore wind energy. And the second one is the positive impact that offshore wind energy projects could have, could be multiplied if we have such a port.
So that’s why, first, we need to move that energy forward no matter what, whether we have a port or not.
But if we can have a port, the studies that have been done, that Melissa alluded to, have stipulated that the economic, positive impact to our region would be multifold because of that port — the supply chain, the economic activity, the jobs would increase.
So that’s why it’s important to move both of those efforts concurrently forward in terms of the feasibility study to see if such a port can be sited in this area and to continue to work aggressively in moving forward with offshore wind.
Q: What is the cost to taxpayers for this construction of a wind port?
A: Carbajal: I think the federal government certainly can provide investments in this area, but it’s probably looking at multi-jurisdictional investment where the locals are going to have to look at what’s entailed to be able to build a bring about such a port. Is it a joint authority?
There will be resources to assist in this effort. But I don’t want to give anybody the impression that this port would be built by all federal or state resources, I think it’s going to be a combination of everybody stepping up. And that’s assuming that it’s feasible and deemed feasible through the study.
Q: The local fishing industry contributes more than $9 million to our local economy. How would that be impacted by offshore wind turbines?
A: Ben Ruttenberg: There’s some concern that in some of these areas if a wind farm is put in, it would effectively exclude fishing activity. Whether that happens or doesn’t happen, I’m not really sure.
There’s likely to be some impact on the fishing community.
So what our group has been doing is pulling a whole bunch of fishing data together and right now we’re really focused on two primary datasets. One we call the landings receipts, basically, anytime a commercial fishing operation goes and lands catch at a port, say, Morro Bay or Port San Luis, and they sell that to a processor, that generates the landing receipt with the species that they caught and the amount of the fish that they caught.
We’re now combining that with a second dataset that’s called the vessel monitoring system (VMS), which is essentially like a GPS on individual fishing vessels. That vessel monitoring system, that GPS, is required on vessels that are fishing for groundfish ... in federal waters.
We’re combining these two datasets to try to really get a sense of not just where boats are active from that GPS, that VMS data, but also what they’re catching when they’re there.
These results are very, very preliminary, but our results seem to suggest that there’s a reasonable amount of fishing activity that’s happening inside that Humboldt call area — it might be as much as 10% or more of the groundfish, the bottom fish, that are landed in the Humboldt Bay ports.
It looks like there’s probably less of that activity happening inside that that Morro Bay call area. We’re still not sure exactly how much, but it’s likely much less than that.
Q: What happens if those turbines are built? Will fishermen lose their livelihoods? Is there going to be any compensation?
A: Douglas: The state is partnering with BOEM on fishing outreach ... and we completely understand that there needs to be a dialogue with the fishing industry and with the people who know that industry the best and are participating and relying on it.
In fact, we have some meetings coming up at the end of November that are going to be between state agencies and BOEM and the commercial fishermen.
If anyone listening who is part of the fishing industry may not know about outreach meetings and wants to attend, you can reach out to either me or Chris Potter, at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. And I can provide information to Mackenzie so that she can connect people but this outreach is really important.
There are models for how to assess impacts and how to understand impacts. I think the point that Ben made about starting with data and starting with really understanding what’s going on and what the impacts are is a very valuable and helpful one. And I think this is going to be an ongoing dialogue as this process moves forward.
A: Carbajal: I’ve had a number of meetings with the area fishermen and I’m encouraged that they have been very forthcoming with their concerns.
I’m also encouraged that they were able to reach an agreement with Trident when they were considering what that project might look like and what kind of mitigations they feel would be fair. I think there’s a blueprint for moving forward not only to address impacts during the environmental assessment process but, ultimately, the successful companies in moving forward will continue to have those dialogues and those negotiations, also, with our local fishermen to reach a win-win.
I’m confident that as long as we have a very public and transparent process, and a good engagement process, we will reach a good positive outcome that’ll be a win-win for everyone.
A: Boren: At the national level BOEM is developing guidance to mitigate potential impacts from offshore wind projects on commercial and recreational fisheries and fishing.
As part of this effort, BOEM will host a series of workshops in early December to solicit input from the fishing community and developers that would inform the draft guidance on fisheries mitigation. Topics to consider include project citing design, navigation and, of course, financial compensation.
There is a workshop for the West Coast fishing community scheduled for Dec. 13 from 10 a.m. to (noon).
Q: Can you explain the relationship between the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary and the proposed offshore wind energy? A chunk of the sanctuary was cut to make room for the wind energy area.
A: Carbajal: At the end of the day, I think you’re going to have protections that the fishermen are going to appreciate that will be included in the Chumash marine sanctuary.
This also provides the Department of Defense some assurances, because if you might recall ... they’re concerned that their training and readiness and testing area not be eviscerated for their needs. So they are actually ecstatic that the Chumash marine sanctuary, actually, in some way also not only protects the environment ... but also protects from further encroachment in their testing area.
A: Boren: I think it shows the great partnership that we have at the federal level.
Both are priorities. Offshore wind is definitely a priority of the administration — needing it to move forward to help combat the effects of climate change. At the same time conservation.
The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary proposal moving forward adjacent to the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area shows that this is important to the administration: Both aspects, the conservation side of the sanctuary, as well as the offshore wind and the renewable energy development to fight the effects of climate change ...
Q: How could these turbines affect whale migration and other marine life?
A: Ruttenberg: Trying to understand those impacts off of our coasts, obviously, is really difficult. You’re talking about waters that are pretty far offshore in very deep water. ...
In general, it looks like many of those environmental impacts from floating wind farms are likely to be pretty minor.
There may actually be some positive effects of these devices ... what we call a reef effect. If you put hard bottom or hard habitat in an area of soft bottom, it often tends to attract lots of invertebrates and fish so you may actually increase some of the populations as well.
Q: Specifically, will new technologies be used to reduce bird strikes?
A: Ruttenberg: There’s some preliminary work that suggests that seabirds may actually be able to avoid these areas much more effectively than land birds have in the past. So it’s possible that impacts on seabirds might be lower.
With new technologies, one of the things that we’re really excited about is the potential to actually start to generate some of the data that we don’t have. Things like new camera technology combined with artificial intelligence might help us to better detect when some of these organisms are present — things like seabirds — and what those impacts might be.
We would strongly advocate for some really substantive work in monitoring to try to understand what the potential impacts are in a place and think about how we might use technology to try to mitigate them.
Q: Residents of Cambria and San Simeon are concerned about their coastal views. How might those potential impacts be mitigated?
A: Boren: We did develop some visual simulations. We have those on our website and I think we have a point from San Simeon near the lighthouse where we have a simulation of what it would look like from shore.
As far as the impacts to home values and property values, that’s something that once we get an actual proposal on a construction operation plan that we can evaluate in a NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) document.
It’s kind of hard to tell because we don’t know exactly where they’re going to be, what size turbines. And if there are impacts, what kind of mitigations? It could be some sort of lighting schemes on the wind farm that would reduce the light so you wouldn’t see it as much at night or paint schemes to reduce the color. But those are things that are further down the road.
Q: San Simeon is a disadvantaged community with a Hispanic majority. Do you think the placement of this project near San Simeon smacks of environmental racism?
A: Boren: That’ll be something that we’ll look at in the future NEPA analysis.
Any positive impacts that we can bring to disadvantaged communities are something that this administration is wanting to do. One of the things that we’re looking at is how we can encourage the lessees out there so that they have projects that do benefit the local communities, and especially communities with disadvantaged areas.
That’s something that we’re looking at. We do take it seriously and it’s very important to the administration.
A: Carbajal: When you consider the climate crisis, those that are most vulnerable are disenfranchised, low-income communities and communities of color. So this is actually going a long way to address climate change and those impacts.
I think this administration, and certainly I, am always concerned about environmental justice issues and making sure that no one community is disadvantaged in any way, shape or form. But rather, we have a positive impact in doing these types of projects; in working with communities to make sure that they are not disproportionately impacted in any way.
Q: Any misconceptions about this potential offshore wind development you would like to clear up?
A: Boren: One of the things is there’s not a project on the table. We’re just in the leasing phase ... although we’ve made progress, we’re still kind of at the beginning.
Once we determine where the leases are, and how many lessees there will be and who the lessees are, then it’ll kind of start to solidify. And especially once we get the construction operation plans in.
We’re still a long way from a project being in the water. It’s 2021 now, and we’re probably not going to have a project in the water until the 2027 timeframe; probably the whole Morro Bay area not operational until the 2030 timeframe.
A: Douglas: I wouldn’t even call it so much misconceptions as just a lack of experience with the BOEM process and the offshore wind process here, and the need to bring California stakeholders up to speed in order to understand what stage of the process we’re at.
We are in the process right now of thinking through what’s the right kind of public engagement to help raise awareness and help people understand how to engage when they can engage in this process. Because as Doug said, it is a long process.
Right now, we can talk about areas, we can talk about the planning coming up for a potential auction, we can talk about the technology — but ... the developers aren’t currently known.
We’re doing our best to raise awareness and get input. And I, again, want to encourage people to pay attention to the work that will be kicking off in the strategic plan AB 525 because that’s another place where you can make your thoughts and concerns and preferences and ideas known to the state.
A: Melissa James: One you hear sometimes is that we’re going to be the guinea pig, (that) this is the first time this is happening. And I would say, we’re not. We’re actually in a really great advantage in California that Europe and the East Coast are ahead of us.
We have the great benefit of learning best practices that are happening in other parts of the world and making sure that it’s done here well.
The other misconception that you hear is ... (that) we know that offshore wind is going to generate jobs, no doubt.
But where those jobs are, and who actually is going to participate in the building of the offshore wind farms is still a question. ...
It’s not a guarantee that the Central Coast is going to benefit in terms of jobs. That infrastructure question will have to be a part of the solution if we want to see the jobs here.
A: Ruttenberg: People often say that these impacts from these wind farms are going to be large, and they’re going to be permanent, and they’re going to sort of forever change our oceans. I think Melissa brings up a great point that we are not the guinea pigs, that there are huge facilities that exist off of Europe.
And so there’s a lot that we can learn from those in terms of broad environmental impacts.
So some of the ways we think about this are actually trying to pull all this stuff together in trade-off analysis. ... Are there ways for us to find places or ways to sort of maximize the benefits of offshore wind power, and minimize some of those impacts of some of those costs?
It’s likely that whatever we do in California is going to inform the process further up the coast, possibly in Oregon and Washington. So we have this opportunity to generate those rigorous scientific data, that monitoring information to help us really understand how best to do this not just here in California, but along the whole West Coast.
Public BOEM scoping meetings about Morro Bay offshore wind energy
BOEM will host two public scoping meetings to solicit stakeholder feedback on the potential Morro Bay offshore wind energy development.
The first will be held at 5 p.m. Dec. 1.
Register in advance for the Zoom webinar at https://kearnswest.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_G3Vh1BFzQZCfpS7LsNxCSQ. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
The second meeting will be held at 9 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2022.
Register in advance for the Zoom webinar at https://kearnswest.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xo3n6qsiSFqRYDhMXF3Z9g. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
How to submit public comment
Comments can be submitted in the following ways:
- Through the federal commenting system web portal, Regulations.gov:
- Navigate to Regulations.gov and search for Docket No. BOEM-2021-0044. Click on the blue “Comment” button in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Enter your information and comment, then click “Submit Comment.”
- In written form, delivered by hand or by traditional mail:
- Enclose comment in an envelope labeled “Scoping on Morro Bay Wind Energy Area Environmental Assessment” and addressed to: Office of the Environment, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 760 Paseo Camarillo, Camarillo, California 93010.
BOEM does not consider anonymous comments. Please include your name and address as part of your submittal. All comments submitted will be made part of the public record and will be posted publicly without change. Comments must be sent by or postmarked no later than 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2022.
