The six New England states, New York and New Jersey have formally requested support from the federal government to establish an interregional transmission planning collaboration.
Successfully integrating offshore wind into the existing power grid requires substantial upgrades and planning, but complex and overlapping jurisdictions have made coordination challenging between the states.
The Business Network for Offshore Wind (BNOW) has consistently called for increased planning and coordination in offshore wind transmission development in order to drive down costs, increase environmental benefits and increase market certainty in industry development.
Sam Salustro, BNOW vice president of strategic communications, remarks: “While the U.S. offshore wind industry hits important early milestones this month, the scale of the industry’s ambition is enormous. Demand for offshore wind already exceeds 80 GW, but we will fail to build out the industry and a manufacturing supply chain to support it without proper development of our electrical grid.
“State collaboration is key to overcoming our transmission conundrum and the federal government must play a central role in facilitating these partnerships,” he adds. “Successful partnerships like the Northeast States Collaborative on Interregional Transmission will save billions for ratepayers and foster long-term confidence in the U.S. market, leading to new supply chain investments and job growth.”
