US Offshore Wind Energy - Standards and Third Party Oversight
Authors: Wisch David J. 
Published: April 2012

The offshore wind energy industry continues to gain momentum with the firstlarge scale wind farms in the approval stages. Extending from land practice tooffshore, similar to the oil and gas industry a number of decades earlier, experience based practices will need to be blended with emerging technology andpractice to provide a safe and viable industry. One of the challenges of anyemerging industry with high public exposure and impact is development of anappropriate regulatory framework.

The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), subsequently reorganized into Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement(BSEE) and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), part of the US Departmentof the Interior, had been given responsibility as the lead agency in theregulatory process for offshore wind energy. In developing the framework andrequirements, BOEMRE has drawn heavily on previous experience as the leadagency for the offshore oil and gas industry in addition to reviewing landbased practices and practices in other countries.

In 2010, BOEMRE asked the National Research Council (NRC) Marine Board toreview the BOEMRE approach utilizing third parties to review aspects of thedesign, fabrication and installation of offshore wind energy facilities. BOEMREcommissioned the Marine Board to perform a study to assess the potential. Thestudy scope was limited to structural safety and to aspects of structuralsafety during operations that could be affected during design, fabrication andinstallation.

The study had not been released at the time this paper was completed and thispaper provides a partial narrative of issues impacting the development ofoffshore wind energy in the US.

Introduction

Offshore wind energy is emerging in the United States with the first projectsbeing permitted. Numerous projects are under development or have been proposed, primarily along the eastern seaboard and the Great Lakes. In April 2010, theCape Wind project, to be located off the Massachusetts coast, became the firstto be approved by federal and state authorities.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 assigned responsibility for the orderly, safe, and environmentally responsible development of renewable energy resources inU.S. federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to the MineralsManagement Service, since reorganized into the Bureau of Offshore EnergyManagement, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). The BOEMRE has exclusivejurisdiction over non-hydrokinetic projects on the OCS. On April 29, 2009, theBOEMRE published a final rule, codified at 30 CFR 285, governing renewableenergy project activities on the OCS.

The BOEMRE, or previous agencies which have been absorbed into the BOEMRE, hasmaintained regulatory jurisdiction for the offshore oil and gas development onthe OCS since the 1960's. The initial regulatory structure for offshore windhas many parallels to the requirements for offshore oil and gasfacilities.

For a proposed facility, the regulations require submission of severaldocuments for BOEMRE approval including three reports covering facility design, fabrication, and installation. The regulations set out in great detail thecontent an scope of these reports - including for example, structural drawings,a summary of the environmental data used in the design, a complete set ofdesign calculations, a geotechnical report, the industry standards proposed foruse in fabrication, and details on the offshore equipment to be used forinstallation. However, the regulations do not specify standards or detailedrequirements that the facility must meet for the BOEMRE to approve thesereports.