Researchers Find Substantial Wind Resource Off Mid-Atlantic Coast

Newswise — The wind resource off the Mid-Atlantic coast could supply the energy needs of nine states from Massachusetts to North Carolina, plus the District of Columbia--with enough left over to support a 50 percent increase in future energy demand--according to a study by researchers at the University of Delaware and Stanford University.

Willett Kempton, Richard Garvine and Amardeep Dhanju at the University of Delaware and Mark Jacobson and Cristina Archer at Stanford, found that the wind over the Middle Atlantic Bight, the aquatic region from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., could produce 330 gigawatts (GW) of average electrical power if thousands of wind turbines were installed off the coast.

The estimated power supply from offshore wind substantially exceeds the region's current energy use, which the scientists estimate at 185 gigawatts, from electricity, gasoline, fuel oil and natural gas sources.

Supplying the region's energy needs with offshore wind power would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 68 percent and reduce greenhouse gases by 57 percent, according to the study.

The study marks the first empirical analysis in the United States of a large-scale region's potential offshore wind-energy supply using a model that links geophysics with wind-electric technology--and that defines where wind turbines at sea may be located in relation to water depth, geology and "exclusion zones" for bird flyways, shipping lanes and other uses.

The results are published in the Jan. 24 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal produced by the American Geophysical Union, a nonprofit organization of geophysicists with more than 49,000 members in 140 countries.

Kempton, the UD professor of marine policy who led the study, has worked on several public opinion surveys about offshore wind power over the past three years, including a survey of Cape Cod residents, who largely have opposed a major wind farm proposed for their coastal area, and a more recent survey in Delaware that revealed strong support for offshore wind power as the next electricity source for the state.

"In doing our surveys and watching the public debate, we saw that no one had solid empirical data on the actual size of the offshore wind resource, and we felt this was important for policy decisions," Kempton said.

Kempton collaborated with an interdisciplinary team of scientists, including Garvine, who is a physical oceanographer and Maxwell P. and Mildred H. Harrington Professor of Marine Studies at UD, and Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford. Archer, who recently completed her doctorate, and Dhanju, who is working on his doctorate, also carried out parts of the research.