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Wind Energy Public Meeting, June 20

SLO County residents will have a chance to learn more about potential plans to place offshore wind turbines in local waters at a town hall meeting set for 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, June 20 at the Cambria Vet’s Hall, 1000 Main St.

Trident Wind has applied to build a wind energy facility offshore of Point Estero (north of Cayucos), and just outside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary boundary. The floating wind farm would be connected via undersea cables coming ashore at Morro Rock and connecting to the state electrical grid at the Morro Bay Power Plant. And, when Diablo Canyon Power Plant closes in 2025, its access to the electric grid would become available as well.

Alla Weinstein, the founder of Trident Winds and former founder and CEO of Principle Power, Inc., will be on hand to discuss their proposal, which is being reviewed by a special task force organized buy the Federal Bureau of Land Management. The California Energy Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are the lead agencies, along with local and federally-recognized tribal governments, in a joint multi-year effort led by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management or BOEM, and under the authority of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Representatives of BOEM and the CEC came to San Luis Obispo in April to make a presentation to the public, in a meeting organized by County Supervisors Bruce Gibson and Adam Hill.

The gist of that meeting was that the process being set up will be thorough and in depth, with plenty of opportunity for public input and transparency in the decision-making. It’s also expected to be a multi-year review process.

Local facilitator, Don Marushka, will lead the Cambria meeting.

Trident applied for a permit from the FERC in January 2014, and made one initial presentation to the Morro Bay City Council, which was receptive to the idea, especially if it means leasing once again the power plant outfall canal and underground tunnel leading to the power plant.

That would be the most direct way for the City to replace the $2 million a year it missed out on when Duke Energy’s attempt to replace the power plant with a modern, gas-fired facility was dropped in 2005, after more than 5 years of trying to get a permit. The project was eventually upended by its planned continued use of seawater for cooling steam.

Trident’s unsolicited permit application prompted the FERC to see if there is any more interest out there and put the idea out for proposals in August 2016, and that’s when Statoil, a Norwegian-based oil and gas giant that does business in more than 30 nations in Europe, North America, Africa and Brazil, also expressed an interest.

With both the State and Federal governments having jurisdiction over any offshore project, Gov. Jerry Brown asked the BLM in 2015, to form a task force to work together to explore the issue.

There is currently one, 5-turbine, wind farm operating offshore from Block Island, R.I., in the U.S.’s outer continental shelf (OCS). BOEM has granted 11 offshore leases for wind farms off the East Coast, with another off the Coast of Long Island N.Y. expected soon. These leases are now being studied for location and strength of wind, which BOEM said would be incorporated into the eventual permit and construction plans.

There is also an area off Oregon and three off Hawaii, along with the Central Coast, being eyed for wind farms, however, there are currently none in the Pacific Ocean.

Interestingly, Weinstein’s former company, Principle Power has done an offshore wind turbine test project, some 5 kilometers offshore of Portugal, wherein a single, 2-megawatt turbine, in a new type of gizmo called a “WindFloat,” successfully produced some 16 gigawatts of power before being taken out in July 2016 at the end of the 5-year test period.

That test was deemed a great success, according to Principle Power’s website (see: www.principlepowerinc.com/en and click on the “WindFloat” icon).

While the WindFloat turbines are specially designed to float on the surface, they still have to be anchored to the seafloor, posing the same concerns many have over migrating whales and the potential for them to become entangled in the chains anchoring the massive structures.

Trident’s application asked to lease some 56 square miles of ocean, for a 650-1,000 megawatt wind farm, in water 2,600-3,000 feet deep and some 26 miles off Point Estero (north of Cayucos).

Each turbine produces 6-8 MW of power, so to produce 1,000 MW, Trident would need to install about 125 of them (at 8MW each).

How and where they plan to be able to service these turbines is among numerous questions that will need to be answered.

Dynegy, owners of the defunct Morro Bay Power Plant, has also discussed a possible offshore wave energy farm using large, sausage-shaped, buoys moored somewhere offshore. Dynegy even sought a permit for a test project to install a single buoy, but that application was denied.

Dynegy has been listing the power plant property for sale for a few years now, along with the company’s other California properties. The power plant, which hasn’t operated in nearly a decade, is key because it has ready access to the state’s power grid through a PG&E-owned electrical substation on the property.

The City of Morro Bay has eyes on that 117-acre power plant property, too, looking at possible zoning changes that might help facilitate its redevelopment.

City Planning Manager, Scot Graham, told the City’s general plan update committee that he’s spoken to several companies that are looking at the property with an interest in redevelopment.

He said he cautions the people he’s talked to that the city has strict height limitations that would preclude building another skyscraper (the power plant’s main building is 165-feet high, some 16 stories), and they’ve responded by looking at what they could do with the existing building as it is.

What if anything would happen to the iconic triple 450-foot tall smokestacks is another question to be answered some day. Duke Energy had estimated it would cost $70 million to remove the stacks and the plant building, but that was back in the early 2000s. For more information on the BOEM task force, see: www.boem.gov/California.

 

-By Neil Farrell

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