What are Offshore Wind farms?

The first offshore wind farm was built in 1991 in Denmark covering the annual electrical consumption of around 2,200 households, setting a precedent to the modern offshore wind farms that are being built today. 

Offshore wind farms are groups of wind turbines that are located on the ocean and different from onshore wind farms which are wind farms on land that often use large swaths of unused lands. 

Unlike more traditional means of generating electricity such as oil, coal and natural gas, offshore wind farms do not release harmful greenhouse gases such as sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide. Fossil fuels, which are plant and animal parts sedimented for millions of years are burned generating heat and electricity. While burning these fossil fuels, they release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur dioxide and more. However, these greenhouse gases ultimately create a greenhouse effect on the whole earth as they trap heat once in the atmosphere by absorbing infrared radiation, accelerating the rate at which climate change occurs. With more and more research being done highlighting the negative effects on greenhouse gases on the Earth, alternative solutions to generate electricity are being proposed. One of them being offshore wind farms. 

Offshore wind farms generate electricity by using large turbines to capture strong winds at sea, converting the wind's kinetic energy to electricity, ultimately generating electricity without releasing any greenhouse gases. This reduces the need for more traditional means of generating electricity as we move towards a world focused on cleaner energy alternatives. 

Courtesy of the American Clean Power Association

Offshore wind farming also offers another potential benefit by serving as artificial reefs for ecosystems within the vicinity of the wind farms, increasing biodiversity within the surrounding area of the farms. 

WIth more and more of the benefits of offshore wind farming being recognized, countries across the globe are increasingly adopting policies that will help push for offshore wind farming. However, the recent Trump administration has actually taken steps toward preventing the development of both onshore and offshore wind farms. On January 20, 2025, the president issued a presidential memorandum that was called the “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects” pausing new or renewed permitting offshore/onshore wind farming projects. This comes as the administration has continuously attacked policies and regulations regarding renewable energy. 

Ultimately, what does this halt on permits mean for offshore wind farming in general? While already approved permits on offshore wind farming are still allowed to proceed with their development, the Administration's actions poses uncertainty throughout the whole industry. Most onshore wind farming developments require some level of federal approval, while most offshore wind farming are more than certainly required some federal approval, which will make it harder for states who have already set climate emissions goals, to effectively implement more renewable energy projects without approval on the federal level in the future.