Google has announced its investment in the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC), a project to erect a 350-mile stretch of wind turbines off the US Atlantic coastline.
Stretching down the coast from New Jersey to Virginia, the AWC will be able to connect 6,000 MW of offshore wind turbines—equivalent to 60 per cent of the wind energy that was installed in the whole of the US last year and enough to serve approximately 1.9 million households.
The AWC backbone will be built around offshore power hubs that will collect the power from multiple offshore wind farms and deliver it via subsea cables to the strongest, highest capacity parts of the land-based transmission system.
In a statement, Mountain View, California-based Google said that by putting strong, secure transmission in place, the project “removes a major barrier to scaling up offshore wind, an industry that despite its potential, only had its first federal lease signed last week and still has no operating projects in the US.”
The company also said that the Mid-Atlantic region is ideally suited for offshore wind, offering more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in relatively shallow waters extending miles out to sea. Shallow waters make it easier to install turbines 10-15 miles offshore, meaning wind projects can take advantage of stronger winds and are also virtually out of sight from land.
The AWC project is led by independent transmission company Trans-Elect and is financed by Google, Good Energies and Marubeni Corporation. Google has invested 37.5 per cent of the equity in the initial development stage.
Rick Needham, Google’s green business operations director, said: “We are pleased to support this investment that will ultimately enable the Mid-Atlantic to benefit from the tremendous wind resource off its coast.”
