SLO County beach town exploring proposal for an offshore wind port. Here’s what we know
Port San Luis Harbor in Avila Beach will explore the idea of building an offshore wind port to support wind farm development on the Central Coast.
At a meeting Tuesday evening, the Port San Luis Harbor District Board approved entering into a project evaluation agreement with Clean Energy Terminals, a leading developer in off-shore wind port facilities, a news release from the harbor district said.
The decision enables both the harbor district and Clean Energy Terminals to jointly evaluate whether it’s feasible for an offshore wind facility to be constructed in San Luis Obispo Bay. The district said if findings show the idea is viable, the agreement sets out a pathway for negotiation leases for the project’s development and operations.
The facility pitched would be an operations and maintenance port facility, the news release said, and would provide a “long-term link” between the offshore wind projects off the Central Coast and communities in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.
“We believe that, at its core, infrastructure development is economic development,” Clean Energy Terminals Chief Executive Brian Sabina said in the release. “Ports are the pivot-point where investments in offshore wind generation are transformed into family sustaining clean energy careers, new supply chain investments for Californian communities and growth opportunities for small and diverse Central Coast businesses.”
The evaluation is expected to take between six and 18 months, the harbor district said. If it is feasible, the district said, developing the facility in the bay would take six to eight years, subject to permitting and the timing of California’s other offshore wind projects.
Any future lease option or long-term lease agreement will require a separate harbor district board approval.
“The harbor district’s mission is to support commercial, recreational and coastal-related activities,” Port San Luis Harbor District’s Harbor Director Suzy Watkins said in the release. “To this end, offshore wind represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for San Luis Obispo Bay that we simply cannot overlook.”
Port would support Morro Bay area wind farms
In June 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued leases to three companies to develop off-shore wind in the Morro Bay wind energy area, an 376-square-mile zone about 20 miles off the coast of San Simeon and Cambria.
According to the Harbor District, recent studies “suggest” that larger support facilities for offshore wind — as are being developed in Humboldt Bay and Long Beach — are not well suited for the Central Coast. Smaller facilities, such as the one Clean Energy Terminals pitched to the district, are typically no more than five acres and support vessels that come into port once every two weeks.
According to Clean Energy Terminal’s website, the port would not receive any large offshore wind components like turbines or blades. Those are typically towed straight to a port located at the wind farm’s site.
The smaller port “would enable Central Coast communities to tap into the new job creation and local economic benefits that are stemming from the offshore wind industry without significant coastal industrialization,” the district said.
Offshore wind is a “multi-billion dollar maritime energy industry” that has seen significant growth on the East Coast and internationally, the news release said. Offshore wind is now emerging off of California’s coast “as part of California’s effort to transition to zero-emission electricity generation by 2045.”
The harbor district said Port San Luis has a “long history” as a commercial and energy port, including goods and passenger movement through Harford Pier, petroleum product export through the facility now known as the Cal Poly Pier and more recently offloading components for Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
California needs billions in port upgrades
A 2023 Oceanic Network report said the U.S. needs to invest at least $36 billion in new and upgraded offshore wind port infrastructure in the next 10 years across about 100 port facilities, the release said, and the Californian Energy Commission estimates that $11 billion to $12 billion is required to upgrade port infrastructure across California to meet the state’s 2045 offshore wind goal.
Port San Luis is one of multiple independent studies sites off of California’s coast to evaluate the feasibility of offshore wind ports.
“Offshore wind brings tremendous economic potential to the state of California, in addition to helping us reach our ambitious climate goals,” Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said in the release. “Some of those benefits should serve the Central Coast, in the form of local jobs and tax revenues, consistent with the careful siting of any project to ensure the protection of environmental resources.”
San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said SLO County is known globally as a leader in clean energy, “but without fit-for-purpose port infrastructure, we are at risk of missing out on the benefits of having wind generation off our shores.”
“The choice is clear,” Ortiz Legg said in the release. “Either we take action today to ensure SLO County shares in the jobs and other economic opportunities that these projects will create or we let those benefits slip away to other parts of the state.”
