The California Energy Commission (CEC) raised its development goals for offshore wind. The agency approved its final report on its development goals for offshore wind in California and raised its target to 2 to 5 GW by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045. The draft report, issued in May, set the targets at 3 GW by 2030 and 10 to 15 GW by 2045.
The final report is the first of four reports required under Assembly Bill (AB) 525, which became law in September 2021 and requires the CEC to “evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of offshore wind to achieve reliability, ratepayer, employment, and decarbonization benefits” along with megawatt offshore wind planning goals for 2030 and 2045. AB 525 was an outgrowth of SB 100, which was passed in 2018 and set a goal of 100% zero-carbon electricity in California by 2045.
In early July, Governor Gavin Newsom asked the CEC to work with the federal government to accelerate the deployment of offshore wind, calling for the deployment goal of at least 20 GW of offshore wind in 2045.