New York Unveils Offshore Wind Blueprint

Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week announced the release of the New York State Offshore Wind Blueprint — a plan to advance the development of offshore wind along New York’s coastline.

According to the governor’s office, the blueprint creates a framework for wind energy generation development off the coast of New York in the form of an offshore wind master plan.

The blueprint defines a New York Offshore Study Area and identifies wind energy areas (WEA) outside of that study area that will be reviewed with respect to grid interconnection, costs, and benefits they may bring to New York.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is the lead entity coordinating the master plan. NYSERDA will work with stakeholders to create a final master plan. Development activities for the plan will begin this fall, according to the blueprint document, and the final master plan will be released by the end of next year.

For the master plan, the document said, the state is examining a 16,740-square-mile area of the ocean, from the south shore of Long Island and New York City to the continental shelf break, for potential future sites for offshore wind. The master plan will help to identify locations within this area for development.

According to the document, New York has 39 GW of wind energy potential off its coast. The governor’s office said that NYSERDA plans to participate in the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) auction for an 81,000-acre WEA located 12 miles off the Long Island coast. NYSERDA would be the first state entity to participate in a BOEM auction.

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