ReVision Energy Co-Founder on New England’s “solar coaster” impacts
With its densely populated coast, strong winds, and shallow and deep water resources, New England is poised to harness major offshore wind power, considered the single biggest lever the region can pull to simultaneously reduce emissions, meet energy needs, and grow the economy.
An analysis by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) found that offshore wind is a USD 100bn industry waiting to happen, bringing with it 83,000 jobs and delivering USD 25bn per year by 2030 in U.S. economic output.
New England for Offshore Wind, a growing alliance of more than 40 business, labor, education and environmental justice organizations and institutions from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, is coordinating advocacy across the six states, leveraging the collective influence of its members to urge governors and legislatures to increase offshore wind targets.
Solar developer ReVision Energy, which has offices across New England, joined the coalition to help move the region from a fossil fuel-based economy to one powered by clean and renewable energy.
“While we happen to focus specifically on the solar industry in the work that we do, we recognize that oftentimes when the sun isn't shining, the wind is blowing strong, and so we’re going to need wind power as part of the overall clean energy transition," Phil Coupe, ReVision Energy Co-Founder and Managing Partner, told New Project Media. "We decided to add our voice to that aspect of renewable energy in our area. We’re not just looking to run a successful solar business; we’re looking to create positive change across our region and society.”
New England states are aiming to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent or more below 1990 levels by 2050. To meet these targets, the new collaborative is pushing for more wind procurements, urging policymakers to make commitments by 2022 to power a third of the region with offshore wind.
“They call it the 'solar coaster' because we go on this insane amusement park ride that's really fun when you're going up into the high regions, but not so fun when the policy causes you to plummet off a cliff,” Coupe said. “We operate in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and in the 17 years that we’ve been doing this, we see that policy has an enormous impact on the ability to move projects forward.”
Coupe cited former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican serving two consecutive terms between 2011 and 2019.
In 2012, LePage killed a ballot initiative requiring the state to obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and in 2018 issued an executive order imposing a moratorium on new development of wind power. LePage also attacked and attempted to undermine solar energy mandates and net metering.
“He tried to drown solar and wind in the bathtub by vetoing any type of policy that would be incentivizing development of solar and wind, and so he really just dropped this suffocating wet blanket across the entire state of Maine,” Coupe said. “Maine has been described as the Saudi Arabia of wind, and that’s because we have enormous offshore wind resources. It’s yet to be tapped. And also, quite a bit of wind up in the mountains, which has become controversial from the aesthetic standpoint. LePage set the wind industry back by more than 10 years simply by squashing all of the momentum. He also killed a deal at the University of Maine where they were going to develop an offshore pilot project. The deal was signed and he blew it up.”
In 2013, Norwegian company Equinor, formerly Statoil, announced that it was abandoning the proposed USD 120m wind project off Maine's coast after LePage signed legislation to reopen the competitive bidding process.
Equinor is currently developing its Beacon Wind project on 128,000 acres located 20 miles south of Nantucket. The lease, acquired in 2019, has the potential for more than 2.4 GW of offshore wind capacity.
“Now Gov. Mills is in office in Maine and she is strongly pro-renewable energy, and now these wind projects are coming back to life,” Coupe said. "The UMaine offshore pilot project has now received a fresh injection of funding from the Dept. of Energy and that should be spinning in the water before too long.”
UMaine is currently collaborating with New England Aqua Ventus (NEAV), a joint venture between Diamond Offshore Wind, a subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Corporation, and RWE Renewables, to develop its 10-12 MW floating offshore wind demonstration project off the coast of Maine.
The project will be deployed in a state-designated area two miles south of Monhegan Island and 14 miles from shore, expected to be completed in 2023.
“Gov. Sununu in New Hampshire today is much more like Paul Lepage than he is like Gov. Mills in Maine, so I’m skeptical that there's going to be much action under the Sununu Administration,” Coupe said. “It's nice that New Hampshire has a wind task force, but unfortunately I’m a little doubtful that we’re going to get very far with Sununu in office."
Last year, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) helped form a regional collaboration between New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts to develop large-scale offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, a deep water resource which has the potential to see 156 GW of offshore wind power.
“In Massachusetts you had Gov. Duval Patrick, who launched maybe the most renewable energy legislation and policies during his two terms," Coupe said. "Gov. Charlie Baker has now come in, and even though he's a Republican, he has pretty much kept the renewable energy policy train chugging along. I think there’s a lot of offshore wind in the process of being developed in Massachusetts right now, although it has been extremely controversial for coastal residents.”
Policies and politics
A 2019 VEIC report shows that an estimated USD 8.2bn is spent annually on fossil fuels in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont alone, all of which are imported from outside of the region.
“Every year, Mainers export USD 6bn from the local economy to import fossil fuels from far away, so it's like having this gigantic hole in Maine’s fiscal boat,” Coupe said. “Every time we build a renewable energy project, whether it’s solar or wind or battery storage, it's like plugging up that hole in our boat and we keep our energy dollars at home in the local economy building good jobs, and creating energy independence and resiliency. If you have no indigenous fossil fuels and you’re relying on something that is finite, not to mention polluting, then at some point over time if people still want to live here, you have to figure out how to do it with those expensive polluting fossil fuels. So, the numbers are really compelling to Mainers to invest in renewable energy infrastructure because over the long haul, it’ll save us a lot of money. It will eventually enable us to exist here without the fossil fuels that are going to go away one way or another.”
Coupe said he hopes to see specific federal and state policies enacted and reinstated in the push to bring more renewables online.
“The federal tax credit for wind and solar has been very powerful," he said, noting the gradual phasedown from 30 percent to 10 percent over the next several years. "We would like to see the full 30 percent federal tax credit reinstated because it’s probably been the single most consistent and encouraging policy nationwide that has unleashed the clean energy transition thus far. I’d also like to see a price on carbon. I think a carbon fee and dividend-type program could go a long way to helping people get motivated to be off of fossil fuels, or at least drastically reduce them.”
The presidential election, which on Wednesday remained undecided as states continue to tally votes, could also determine the pace at which renewables will be procured and developed.
“The good news is that even in situations where we’ve had LePage in Maine and Sununu in New Hampshire, clean energy has continued to grow in those states, despite the best efforts to snuff it out,” Coupe said. “Regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, we’re pretty confident that there will still be a majority of Americans who want to move forward with clean energy and realize the strong economic and environmental return on renewable energy investment, so those dollars will continue to flow and projects will continue to get built. I think it’s a matter of how fast we can go. With Biden and Harris, we pick up the pace. If Trump gets reelected, maybe we’re not chugging along quite as fast as we would like, but we’re still going strong.”