PNNL

Abstract

The Biden Administration has called for 30 GW of offshore wind (OSW) to be implemented by 2030 and 15 GW of floating OSW by 2035. Because floating OSW is a novel technology for the West Coast, the United States, and the world, there is limited information about the implications of floating OSW for coastal communities. Floating OSW faces a complex regulatory landscape and a wide set of interested parties that stand to gain or lose based on the development process and outcomes. Key agencies are often siloed in their mission space, with little attention or resources for innovation in planning. Furthermore, many communities along the West Coast of the U.S. have experienced the boom-and-bust cycles of large, extractive industries that use coastal resources to benefit consumers in other locations, while leaving behind few long-lasting benefits at the local level. These siloes in government and civic society, and the lack of trust born out of past failures, make it difficult for communities, government agencies, scientists, and industry to plan for OSW based on community values and concerns. There is a need to develop projects that more equitably distribute benefits while safeguarding the ocean ecosystems upon which coastal populations depend. Meeting these challenges requires innovative approaches that scale place-based, community-engaged research, a relatively new capability at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). To bring together and advance PNNL’s expertise in community-engaged research and OSW and to lay the foundation to address these challenges going forward, we tackled two research questions: 1) What are the key elements of a scalable, community-engaged approach to OSW that are relevant for the West Coast? and 2) Who are the communities along the West Coast that are most likely to be interested in or affected by OSW? To answer these questions, we conducted a literature review, internal workshops, expert interviews, and an inventory of communities along the West Coast. Our research has led to a draft framework for advancing community-engaged research for floating OSW on the West Coast and an inventory of more than 400 communities engaging in the OSW planning process and their primary areas of focus. We have developed two manuscripts for journal submission to communicate our results and secured further support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for social science research on relationships between floating offshore wind and communities. Through this work, we are advancing the understanding of West Coast community values and concerns with OSW, building PNNL capabilities to develop innovative and scalable approaches and tools for effective public engagement in OSW development, and laying the foundation for meaningful collaboration and more community-centered planning and permitting.