8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind would produce enough energy to more than replace all the coal and gas plants left in Maryland. It’s enough to power every home in Maryland. It’d more than triple the amount of clean electricity generation currently in our state.
In short: it’s a LOT of clean electricity, and a new bill in Annapolis could help bring this much offshore wind power to our state. It’s called the POWER Act, and your lawmakers need to hear from you about it. So send an email to your Maryland lawmakers asking them to help pass the POWER Act this year! Or, if they’re already signed on as a co-sponsor, send them a quick note of thanks.
Not many people know this, but the biggest barrier to building more offshore wind turbines is a lack of adequate transmission. When they built the electric grid on the Eastern Shore, nobody anticipated we would be putting power plants in the ocean.
That’s why the Promoting Offshore Wind Energy Resources (POWER) Act would build a shared transmission line capable of supporting 8.5 gigawatts of electricity that all future wind farms could plug into, lowering energy costs and making it possible to build the clean energy we so desperately need. The POWER Act would also make it the official goal of Maryland to build 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind before 2031, while immediately building another gigawatt of offshore wind, and strengthening labor standards for offshore wind projects at the same time.
We can meet our energy needs entirely with clean, renewable sources of energy, but not without passing new laws like the POWER Act to make the necessary infrastructure investments. We all know that these changes need to happen half a century ago and should not wait another year for the problem to get even worse.
Together, we have successfully passed offshore wind legislation before in Maryland, both with the Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019 and the Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2013. As a result of those laws, Maryland is already in the process of building about 2 gigawatts of offshore wind power, and those projects should have blades spinning soon.
Let’s build on this success and make Maryland a real leader.
