East Coast, blue-state Governors want you to pay for their offshore wind turbines

Six blue-state Governors on the East Coast want you to pay for their offshore wind turbines.

On September 13, 2023, Governors from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island sent a letter pleading with the Biden administration to subsidize offshore wind projects in their states with your tax dollars by extending the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” subsidies to these projects.

The letter comes at a time when the offshore wind industry is facing headwinds due to rising turbine prices. According to Bloomberg, more than half of the proposed offshore wind projects on the East Coast due to rising costs stemming from rising interest rates, long permitting timelines, and the rising cost of raw materials. Add it all up, and offshore wind prices are up 48 percent in the last two years.

Without more subsidies from federal taxpayers, the East Coast wind projects are increasingly at risk of failing, wrote the Governors, because offshore wind is so expensive that the states’ ratepayers may be unable to absorb these significant new costs alone.

Offshore wind is far more expensive than other energy sources, with prices surging on some projects to $160 per megawatt-hour (MWh), which is far higher than new natural gas plants, which can range in cost from $30 to $60 depending on fuel prices and how often the power plants operate. For these prices, states looking to reduce their emissions would be better off pursuing new nuclear power plants.

Hardworking Americans should not be forced to bail out the ill-conceived energy policies of coastal states that continue to deny that the physics of wind and solar don’t pencil out.