Nov. 11: The most recent version of this tracker updates the policy table to include legislation passed in California that will allow the Port of Long Beach to expedite its construction of Pier Wind, a “multiacre terminal and transportation corridor to support offshore wind-related activities.” It also updates the map of Northeastern offshore wind projects to allow the marker indicating the Carolina Long Bay project to be hovered over.

Other recent developments in the U.S. offshore wind industry include:

• President-elect Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, months after vowing that he would “make sure that [offshore wind] ends on day one” of his second term.
• Voters in Louisiana, Rhode Island and California passed state ballot initiatives to increase offshore wind funding. 
• The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management awarded 6 GW in provisional offshore wind leases to Equinor and Dominion Energy.
• BOEM executed the first floating offshore wind energy research lease in the U.S., awarding an area totaling 15,000 acres and containing up to 144 MW of capacity to Maine.
• The U.S. Department of the Interior approved US Wind’s 2-GW Maryland offshore wind project.
• BOEM announced, then postponed, Oregon’s first offshore wind auction.
• The Gulf of Maine’s first-ever offshore wind leases, containing a potential capacity of 6.8 GW, were awarded to Avangrid and Invenergy subsidiaries.

An offshore wind boom is underway in the U.S. as the industry aims to meet the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 30 GW by 2030. Last year the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held its first-ever auction for offshore wind leases off the West Coast in addition to auctioning six new lease areas in the New York Bight, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held its first-ever auction for offshore wind leases off the West Coast. A record total of nine leases went into effect in 2022.

The federal government has also proposed lease sales in the Gulf of Maine and the Gulf of Mexico, where deeper waters will necessitate the use of floating wind platforms instead of fixed-bottom turbine foundations. And Ohio is working to establish an offshore wind farm in Lake Erie that would be the first U.S. freshwater farm in state-controlled waters.

As the industry expands, so do the number of state and federal policy measures aimed at managing offshore wind. These measures include proposals to direct some offshore wind revenue toward studies on the industry’s marine impacts, and ones that would require analysis of offshore wind’s impacts on transmission planning. Use the search field below to find individual states by their postal abbreviation, or type "US" to find activity at the federal level.

Methodology: Wind farms under construction are listed once their developers release specifics on their size and location. The policy table includes significant state and federal developments. It generally does not include project-specific developments like environmental assessments. To suggest updates or alterations, please email [email protected].