Morro Bay’s iconic power plant. Image credit to Wikimedia user: Keavon
Morro Bay, a city of the central coast, and Humboldt, located in the north coast of California, are potential and highly viable candidates for offshore wind farms. This comes as part of the Biden administration’s aggressive plans for renewable energy, alongside Newsom’s cooperation, and even the Navy’s, as they were opposed to offshore wind farms because they prefer no obstacles to their ships.
In addition, the innovation of floating wind turbines makes offshore wind farms possible on the pacific ocean, since traditional anchored wind turbines are not viable in the depths of the pacific.
These two sites alone are estimated to generate 4.6 gigawatts (GW) of energy, which will power about a million homes. Meanwhile, the entire USA’s current offshore generation is a mere 42 megawatts (.042 GW), though the Biden administration is pushing torwards 30 GW of energy production from these farms. These plans will be a boon for Morro Bay, whose iconic 3 stack natural gas fired power plant shut down in 2014. Their 2015 vision of a wind farm will finally be accomplished, and may finally use the former power plant as a site for lithium-ion battery energy storage, which would be the world’s highest capacity battery storage.