Marine Transmission Options
Seth Parker is vice president and principal at Levitan & Associates, Inc. (LAI) an energy management consulting firm in Boston. He advises on renewable and conventional energy procurements throughout the U.S. He testified before the Rhode Island PUC on the Block Island Wind Farm and led LAI’s offshore wind procurement design and evaluation efforts for the Maryland PSC.
Alex Mattfolk is a managing consultant and leads LAI’s dispatch simulation efforts. He evaluates the impact of resource additions and retirements on competitive power markets, advised RTOs and the U.S. DOE on gas/electric interdependencies, and provided technical support to a leading offshore wind developer.
Many east coast states are pursuing offshore wind resources to achieve their long-term renewable energy and carbon reduction goals. In our article, "Offshore Wind Transmission Options, Opportunities," in the April 2018 issue of PUF, we addressed many of the threshold challenges of the marine transmission options to deliver offshore wind power to the onshore grid. Those options included:
Export Cables — akin to radial lead lines for land-based generation, which are an integral part of each offshore wind project. All offshore wind procurements to date have included export cables in which the construction and operating risks of the generation and transmission components are born by a single party, thereby aligning their strategic interests. PJM is considering allowing offshore wind projects to be built with export cables and exploring how to connect them together at a later point to create an offshore grid.