State legislation could help put the Great Lakes’ first offshore wind farm in Chicago

Eyes are on state legislation that would realize the Great Lakes’ first offshore wind farm — in Chicago.

While the bill that would help make it happen passed the House last year and is under consideration in the Senate, the unprecedented energy development is shrouded in unknowns and likely several years from construction.

Great Lakes states have considered offshore wind as a potential power source for more than a decade, but a mixed bag of economic, environmental and engineering uncertainties have pumped the breaks on what some have long envisioned to be a golden ticket to clean energy in the Midwest and beyond.

“A lot of states have explored offshore wind — Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New York — but nobody’s really found a way to make it viable,” said Joel Brammeier, CEO for nonprofit Alliance for the Great Lakes. “The challenge from the environmental perspective is there are a number of unknowns that you can’t really get at without having a project in place.”

Icebreaker, a Cleveland project poised to be the Great Lakes’ first offshore wind farm, was suspended last month after 14 embattled years. The Icebreaker team was forced to throw in the towel after years of delays lost the project essential federal funding.

Without a project in the water, Brammeier said environmental questions like effects on migratory birds and bats are difficult to answer. He added that the economic viability of offshore wind is another can of worms — one that’s exacerbated in the Great Lakes by the difficulty of getting large enough construction vessels to building sites.

Driving the legislation amid these challenges is the critical need to replace fossil fuel energy with clean electricity. Rep. Marcus Evans, the Chicago Democrat who introduced the legislation, cautioned that the bill simply would start the process — not guarantee a development.

“You still have to have a competitive process to get a developer to come in and say that they’re going to build,” he said. “There’s 25 steps after the bill passes.”

To answer cost concerns, the pending legislation also would set up a fund to help the project apply for federal grant money and require the state to procure electricity from at least one large offshore wind project on Lake Michigan.

Rep. Mark Walker, an Arlington Heights Democrat who is one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said offshore wind represents one more tool the state can use to slow global warming.

“We have to use alternatives to fossil fuels in order to turn the corner on climate change, and I really believe that, for the long term, the health of the planet is at risk,” Walker said. “It's too big an issue just to walk away from alternatives.”

Founding dean of Loyola University’s School of Environmental Sustainability Nancy Tuchman, who has studied the Great Lakes extensively as an aquatic ecologist, said southwest Lake Michigan could be an ideal site for offshore wind.

“Offshore wind really has enormous benefits in terms of energy production, and it's really, really worth looking at,” Tuchman said. “I don’t think it’s going to have big wildlife impacts, and I think that we’re going to get a lot of bang for our buck putting them out along the Illinois waterway, because there’s this long, shallow shelf where the installation could be easier and less expensive.”

Leading concerns in the House last year included questions about the lake’s environment and wildlife, the safety and feasibility of running cables underwater, and the lakeside view aesthetics.

“All of these things we've dealt with in other areas and other places in the world,” Walker said. “The overriding concern across the board, given that this is a clean and safe energy source, is that we have to do everything we can to wean ourselves from fossil fuels.”

The country saw its first commercial-scale offshore wind project deliver electricity to the grid just last month in the form of Vineyard Wind, a project in Massachusetts near Martha’s Vineyard. However, with offshore wind farms having supplied power to Europe since the 1990s, the U.S. is well behind its peers when it comes to the clean technology.

And while ocean-side wind farms are beginning to gain traction on both coasts, the Great Lakes are under an additional disadvantage given the unique environmental considerations.

“Many issues associated with wind development in the Great Lakes will require solutions different from those developed for offshore wind in ocean states and may not fully benefit from the industry learnings of nearby states,” according to a recent report out of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “As a result, technology readiness and cost reduction for Great Lakes Wind energy generation is likely to be delayed relative to other regions without a substantial, targeted research campaign, and proactive stakeholder engagement in the region at all levels.”

• Jenny Whidden is a climate change and environment writer working with the Daily Herald through a partnership with Report For America supported by The Nature Conservancy. To help support her work with a tax-deductible donation, see dailyherald.com/rfa.