TY - RPRT
TI - The Demand for a Domestic Offshore Wind Energy Supply Chain
AU - Shields, M
AU - Marsh, R
AU - Stefek, J
AU - Oteri, F
AU - Gould, R
AU - Rouxel, N
AU - Diaz, K
AU - Molinero, J
AU - Moser, A
AU - Malvik, C
AU - Tirone, S
AB - In March of 2021, the Biden administration established a national offshore wind energy target to install 30 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. This ambitious goal was intended to not only help reduce dependency on fossil fuels, but also establish a new and sustainable renewable energy industry in the United States. The announcement referenced the potential benefits of establishing a domestic supply chain, including providing existing suppliers with the ability to produce thousands of components while creating tens of thousands of U.S. jobs over the course of the decade.The administration’s vision aligns with the perspective of the offshore wind energy industry. At a Leadership 100 event hosted by the Business Network for Offshore Wind in 2019, offshore wind energy developers and manufacturers identified the need for a road map outlining a pathway to a domestic supply chain as the top priority facing the industry. Building up domestic manufacturing capabilities will not only energize local industries but can possibly de-risk individual projects by reducing reliance on importing resources from European or Asian markets. Although establishing a domestic supply chain will require significant investment, it has the potential to benefit the entire industry and, by extension, help meet the country’s decarbonization goals.In this report, we characterize the challenges and opportunities facing the domestic supply chain industry and evaluate its potential benefits. This report is the first of a two-part series, describing the full supply chain road map and its associated benefits. The first report focuses on the highlevel deployment, workforce, and component requirements that need to be met to achieve the national offshore wind energy target. We present:A deployment pipeline that demonstrates the pathway to 30 GW and anticipated deployment rates after 2030, the associated demand for major fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind components (e.g., wind turbines, foundations, cables, substations), and the vessel and port requirements to support those installation activities.A series of sensitivity analyses showing how the demand for components, ports, and vessels changes for different technology pathways and availability of the global supply chain.An estimate of the total number of jobs that would be required to support the deployment scenarios under varying levels of assumed domestic content.A detailed list of the Tier 1, 2, and 3 components (e.g., finished components, subassemblies, and subcomponents, respectively) required to construct fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind energy projects.A discussion of critical path components that represent a significant challenge, bottleneck, or risk for a future domestic supply chain.The follow-on report, scheduled for publication in 2022, will build on those results to characterize the need for critical Tier 2 and 3 components and how effectively existing supply chain capabilities can be used to meet the component demand. The readiness level of existing suppliers will be used to define potential domestic supply chain scenarios that leverage the strengths of the current system. We will evaluate the range of outcomes that are associated with those different scenarios, including regional jobs and economic benefits, impact on project cost and logistics, and the potential effects on disadvantaged communities or populations.In this report, we focus on the high-level demand for resources that will inform the next stage of analysis. We begin by establishing a deployment pipeline that conveys the scheduling of how existing offshore wind lease areas can be developed. This pipeline considers evolving technologies over the course of the decade, such as increasing wind turbine ratings and the types of vessels required to install projects, along with sensitivities to bottlenecks in the global supply chain and different market penetrations of fixed-bottom foundations. We use the deployment rates of the pipeline along with technology assumptions to consider the demand for ports and vessels and provide a high-level assessment of how effectively these resources can support the planned offshore wind energy buildout. The number of components manufactured annually feeds into an economic input/output model to evaluate the number of jobs and the magnitude of economic benefits that could be created under varying levels of domestic content. We break down these overall job numbers to identify the types of components that have the potential to provide the highest impact on a domestic workforce. Finally, we provide a detailed explanation of the types of Tier 1, 2, and 3 components that will be needed as part of offshore wind energy deployment and identify critical path items that may present a challenge for a domestic supply chain.
CY - Golden, CO
DA - 2022/03//
PY - 2022
SP - 149
PB - National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
SN - NREL/TP-5000-81602
UR - https://www.nrel.gov/wind/offshore-supply-chain-road-map.html
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Fixed Offshore Wind
KW - Floating Offshore Wind
KW - Human Dimensions
ER -