Coastal electricity delivery systems are spatially constrained by the presence of an ocean. Electric generation sources can be located at great distances from these areas, which means that significant transmission infrastructure is needed to assure reliable electric delivery over long distances. Accordingly, transmission services can be capacity constrained along the coasts, making it difficult to add new load to the system or manage new demand peaks. This can be true for cities as well as remote electric loads. Installing new transmission infrastructure is an expensive and spatially-constrained proposition. Coastal transmission and distribution lines may be single points of failure, providing no redundancy for these communities if a line is suddenly unavailable. Siting marine energy in constrained areas could provide both clean renewable energy and unique benefits to the system, such as a deferral or reduction of investments in the distribution and transmission system, provision of ancillary services (e.g., frequency and voltage support), and power quality benefits.

Other locational benefits are the avoidance of land use, or the opportunity cost associated with not using the land for siting new generation, transmission, or distribution and instead using marine resources. The infrastructure build-out required to meet renewable energy goals, especially when policy includes a proximity requirement—such as direct interconnection to the state or balancing area—may have unacceptable spatial demands on available land. This benefit becomes especially valuable where land is unavailable, for example on an island or at a remote installation.

Finally, there is a system operational effect of geographic distribution of generators, a difference between generators spread over a broad area rather than clustering generators in a single location. Notably for renewable resources, clustering of resources may be appropriate due to resource intensity or the availability of transmission. Yet this means that the operational challenges of intermittency – e.g., of a resource being unavailable, unavailability on a persistent basis, or rapid changes in the rate of availability—can be compounded. Through its ocean environment, marine renewable energy represents strong geographic diversity with the development of other renewable resources.