Offshore Wind Energy and California Central Coast
Current Projects
Offshore wind has the potential to generate a significant amount of California's electricity with low/no carbon emissions, all while creating well-paying jobs locally and throughout the state. Still, the size and scope of these proposed projects raise a number of important questions that we need to address for Offshore Wind to be developed responsibly. Our lab group has sought to address some of these questions over the last decade.
Our most recent work has focused primarily on two avenues. First, Cal Poly collaborated with Cal Poly Humboldt and Oregon State to create the Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium (POWC). The POWC (pronounced pow-sea) will enable universities, host communities, and Tribal nations to share resources, co-develop best practices, and design comprehensive research programs that reflect the dynamic nature of the ocean environment and the diversity of community perspectives. The consortium will advance three pillars: (i) research and innovation, (ii) university-level workforce education and professional development, and (iii) community and Tribal engagement and knowledge exchange.
Concurrently, we have been part of the leadership team for the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation work--funded by the California Ocean Protection Council--to develop environmental monitoring guidance to help the State of California prepare for offshore wind development. This work has mostly involved syntheses of existing information on potential environmental effects of offshore wind development, assessment of existing monitoring efforts, and identification of key knowledge and monitoring gaps to guide the next phase of work.
We hired Zoe Bixby, recent Cal Poly grad, to help coordinate our work for both of these efforts.
Past Projects
In collaboration with Crow White in Biology, Ryan Walter in Physics, and Yi-Hui Wang (our fantastic research scientist, who recently left us for CA OPC), we examined a range of questions related to the potential to develop offshore renewable energy in our region and the potential impacts of that development. First, we sought to evaluate the potential for wind energy along the California central coast using realistic scenarios for energy production. Existing predictions of wind power has used average wind speeds, but since we know the wind does not always blow at average speeds, estimates of power from these averages will be inaccurate. We developed an approach to more accurately predict power with precision in space and through time. Yi-Hui led that work, published here.
Next, we took our more precise estimates of wind, and used them to predict how much power these winds could generate from our local waters, and then how well that power lined up with statewide demand for electricity. Interestingly, we found that offshore winds power production is strongest during spring and summer evenings, which happens to coincide both with the peak in demand (since people often turn on lots of appliances when they get home from work), and with the drop in solar production as the sun sets. These findings suggest that offshore wind will complement solar well, and have a high economic value. Yi-Hui led this one too, published here.
We've also made some estimates of just how much total electricity some of the areas off of the Central Coast can generate. Spoiler alert: it's substantial (possibly up to 10% of California's total electricity needs in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area; see map here). Yi-Hui was lead on this as well, published in in the journal Wind Energy.
Next, we sought to explore how offshore floating wind farms might impact the ocean where they might be built. Since there was only one floating wind farm that has just been deployed when we started this effort (so there were no data on the impacts of floating wind farms themselves), we conducted a qualitative systematic review of a range of potential environmental impacts that floating wind farms might have using analogs (such as fixed bottom offshore and land-based wind turbines, wave and tidal energy devices, and oil and gas platforms). Our review suggests that many potential effects either pose a low risk to marine environment or could be mitigated to pose a low risk if developers take appropriate actions. This project was led by Hayley Farr, who did much of this work as part of her undergrad senior project, and is now at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working on other issues related to offshore renewable energy. Hayley did a fantastic job on this project, published here.
We also did some work to begin to develop software and AI tools to evaluate the potential impacts of offshore wind on deep-sea benthic (seafloor) systems. This pilot study developed software and workflows to ground-truth deep sea benthic video imagery and begin testing AI models to automate these processes. That work has not been funded past the pilot stage, but did result in a conference publication, here, and we continue to seek funding for the next stages of this work.
More recent work has focused on fisheries and use of space in offshore environments. Our first paper on this topic used CDFW landings data--again, ably led by Yi-Hui, was published in Marine and Coastal Fisheries. We then combined these data with NOAA Vessel Monitoring Systems data--essentially GPS information for fishing vessels--to generate higher resolution information about fishing effort for a range of fisheries along the US West Coast, along with effort and catch for groundfish in California. That paper was led by Yi-Hui, published in early 2024, here.
Using that high-resolution fishing data along with other datasets on marine mammals and seabirds, combined with our earlier estimates of paper production, Crow led a paper exploring how development of offshore wind might impact other users of ocean space. That analysis, published here, conducted a tradeoff analysis between power production and use of space by fisheries, marine mammals, and seabirds in the Morro Bay Wind Energy areas.
So far, most of our work has focused on the Central Coast, but we can apply the framework we've developed to other parts of the West Coast, the U.S., or really, anywhere in the world.
Offshore wind has the potential to generate a significant amount of California's electricity with low/no carbon emissions, all while creating well-paying jobs locally and throughout the state. Still, the size and scope of these proposed projects raise a number of important questions that we need to address for Offshore Wind to be developed responsibly. Our lab group has sought to address some of these questions over the last decade.
Our most recent work has focused primarily on two avenues. First, Cal Poly collaborated with Cal Poly Humboldt and Oregon State to create the Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium (POWC). The POWC (pronounced pow-sea) will enable universities, host communities, and Tribal nations to share resources, co-develop best practices, and design comprehensive research programs that reflect the dynamic nature of the ocean environment and the diversity of community perspectives. The consortium will advance three pillars: (i) research and innovation, (ii) university-level workforce education and professional development, and (iii) community and Tribal engagement and knowledge exchange.
Concurrently, we have been part of the leadership team for the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation work--funded by the California Ocean Protection Council--to develop environmental monitoring guidance to help the State of California prepare for offshore wind development. This work has mostly involved syntheses of existing information on potential environmental effects of offshore wind development, assessment of existing monitoring efforts, and identification of key knowledge and monitoring gaps to guide the next phase of work.
We hired Zoe Bixby, recent Cal Poly grad, to help coordinate our work for both of these efforts.
Past Projects
In collaboration with Crow White in Biology, Ryan Walter in Physics, and Yi-Hui Wang (our fantastic research scientist, who recently left us for CA OPC), we examined a range of questions related to the potential to develop offshore renewable energy in our region and the potential impacts of that development. First, we sought to evaluate the potential for wind energy along the California central coast using realistic scenarios for energy production. Existing predictions of wind power has used average wind speeds, but since we know the wind does not always blow at average speeds, estimates of power from these averages will be inaccurate. We developed an approach to more accurately predict power with precision in space and through time. Yi-Hui led that work, published here.
Next, we took our more precise estimates of wind, and used them to predict how much power these winds could generate from our local waters, and then how well that power lined up with statewide demand for electricity. Interestingly, we found that offshore winds power production is strongest during spring and summer evenings, which happens to coincide both with the peak in demand (since people often turn on lots of appliances when they get home from work), and with the drop in solar production as the sun sets. These findings suggest that offshore wind will complement solar well, and have a high economic value. Yi-Hui led this one too, published here.
We've also made some estimates of just how much total electricity some of the areas off of the Central Coast can generate. Spoiler alert: it's substantial (possibly up to 10% of California's total electricity needs in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area; see map here). Yi-Hui was lead on this as well, published in in the journal Wind Energy.
Next, we sought to explore how offshore floating wind farms might impact the ocean where they might be built. Since there was only one floating wind farm that has just been deployed when we started this effort (so there were no data on the impacts of floating wind farms themselves), we conducted a qualitative systematic review of a range of potential environmental impacts that floating wind farms might have using analogs (such as fixed bottom offshore and land-based wind turbines, wave and tidal energy devices, and oil and gas platforms). Our review suggests that many potential effects either pose a low risk to marine environment or could be mitigated to pose a low risk if developers take appropriate actions. This project was led by Hayley Farr, who did much of this work as part of her undergrad senior project, and is now at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working on other issues related to offshore renewable energy. Hayley did a fantastic job on this project, published here.
We also did some work to begin to develop software and AI tools to evaluate the potential impacts of offshore wind on deep-sea benthic (seafloor) systems. This pilot study developed software and workflows to ground-truth deep sea benthic video imagery and begin testing AI models to automate these processes. That work has not been funded past the pilot stage, but did result in a conference publication, here, and we continue to seek funding for the next stages of this work.
More recent work has focused on fisheries and use of space in offshore environments. Our first paper on this topic used CDFW landings data--again, ably led by Yi-Hui, was published in Marine and Coastal Fisheries. We then combined these data with NOAA Vessel Monitoring Systems data--essentially GPS information for fishing vessels--to generate higher resolution information about fishing effort for a range of fisheries along the US West Coast, along with effort and catch for groundfish in California. That paper was led by Yi-Hui, published in early 2024, here.
Using that high-resolution fishing data along with other datasets on marine mammals and seabirds, combined with our earlier estimates of paper production, Crow led a paper exploring how development of offshore wind might impact other users of ocean space. That analysis, published here, conducted a tradeoff analysis between power production and use of space by fisheries, marine mammals, and seabirds in the Morro Bay Wind Energy areas.
So far, most of our work has focused on the Central Coast, but we can apply the framework we've developed to other parts of the West Coast, the U.S., or really, anywhere in the world.