Addressing NIMBYism in Offshore Wind Development by Noah Hallward-Rough

Transitions for Sustainability, Vol. 3, No. 4

Introduction

The acronym NIMBY stands for Not In My Back Yard. It has been used to describe many peoples’ views on new infrastructure and energy projects. Whether solar or wind farms, roads, railways, transmission lines, or new housing, many fight to keep these developments out of their neighborhoods. NIMBYism has halted infrastructure projects across the world and can garner support from unlikely places. I remember hearing the only time the Kennedys and Koch brothers agreed was when they helped stop a planned offshore wind farm in Cape Cod.^[1] It's unlikely partnerships like these that help show just how powerful NIMBYism can be. However, the environmental and economic benefits of renewable energy, and particularly offshore wind, dramatically outweigh NIMBYism and motivate us to fight against it. Using effective strategies to fight against NIMBYism can facilitate offshore wind development, while addressing community concerns to ensure sustainable energy growth.

NIMBYism

Like the Cape Cod example illuminates, offshore wind has had considerable challenges with NIMBYism. The coastal communities who are likely to see the turbines from their beaches, and help facilitate the power being brought to shore, also have some of the wealthiest residents. They have the money, and often the political power, to stop these projects in their tracks. As these rich, often summer residents, halt the development of energy or housing projects, they block the many benefits offshore wind can bring to the rest of the community. A lack of work and city funding can force year-round residents out of their homes, allowing more seasonal residents, with the power to stop offshore wind developments, to move in.

Further, offshore wind has the unique challenge of having very few possible building locations. Following their name, offshore wind farms can only be built offshore, often in view of wealthy coastal communities. A solar farm, for instance, will often be moved to a less inhabited area or to a lower income area, where residents do not have the power to fight it. While this has clear problems as well, it is also clear that this is partly why solar projects are getting built at much higher rates than wind projects. New solar projects outpaced new wind developments by 4x in 2023.^[2] In no way do I advocate for pushing our energy projects into lower income areas. However, I do believe this example helps show that offshore wind has a harder time combatting NIMBYism than other energy sources because of its unique location restrictions.

The Cape Cod example helps show the unique challenges offshore wind has in combating NIMBYism. It demonstrates that even supporters of renewable energy, like the Kennedys, are often quick to strike these projects down when they will affect their community. Often residents worry about the turbine's visual impact, noise, marine impact, and a decrease in property value. While these can negatively affect communities, and should be taken seriously, the benefits of renewable energy, and particularly offshore wind, dramatically outweigh these negatives.

Offshore Wind

The list of benefits of renewable energy is long and is backed up by renewables accounting for most of the new energy projects created in developed countries. Offshore wind further differentiates itself from other renewable energy sources with a unique set of advantages.

One of offshore wind's biggest benefits is its consistency compared to other renewable sources. While most renewable sources vary dramatically in energy production, depending on time of day or season, offshore wind has more consistent production than other renewable alternatives.^[3] Wind in the ocean is usually more consistent than onshore wind, showing a significant benefit over onshore wind farms. Further, the wind can blow 24 hours a day, rain or shine. These are major benefits over solar which relies solely on sunny days. These benefits are significant for creating a more reliable renewables based grid and they allow us to rely less on battery storage. Battery storage is used to counteract the variability in renewable energy generation. With more reliable renewable energy generation through offshore wind, the less batteries we will need. This will allow us to use more batteries for other sectors like transportation, while also keeping the destructive and often inhumane methods of lithium and cobalt mining to a minimum. Offshore wind’s consistency will allow our grid to be more reliable without relying on the vast number of batteries required for a grid based on less consistent renewables like solar or onshore wind.

Offshore wind also benefits from its location in the ocean. While this is also one of its major disadvantages when relating to NIMBYism, ocean based energy production allows up to free up valuable area onshore. This area can be used for housing, conservation, or other green infrastructure projects like high speed rail. While lease areas for offshore wind turbines can be measured in the millions of acres, the area can still facilitate fishing, ocean transport, and trade. The lease areas are also selectively chosen to stay out of the most fished areas and important migratory paths. Unlike a solar farm, which blocks access to the acreage being utilized, an offshore wind farm keeps the ocean open for business. Many opponents of offshore wind will argue against the industry for its understudied effects on the marine environment. This is a reasonable concern and these effects should be studied further. However, a bigger risk for marine environments is our current Co2 emissions and the resulting acidification of the ocean.^[4] Offshore wind's ability to mitigate these emissions, by substituting for energy generation using fossil fuels, is reason enough to continue to push the industry forward.

Offshore wind’s location is a further benefit when it comes to the quantity of energy generated. An average onshore wind turbine moved offshore can increase its energy output by 18%. Further, offshore wind turbines are often larger without having to comply with stricter onshore height limits. This all means that an average offshore wind turbine can produce 31,400 MWH per year.^[5] The power for 3,000 US homes. Compared with solar this is a massive difference. An acre of solar produces around 400 MWH per year^[6] meaning you would need 78.5 acres to generate the same amount of electricity as one offshore wind turbine. 78.5 acres that could be used for so many other uses, while the site of the offshore wind turbine is not only much smaller but can still be utilized for most marine activities. Offshore wind’s increased output, consistency, and location, make it a near required energy source in our renewable energy transition.

Communities

The environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind are clear but NIMBYism persists. So, looking at the communities most affected by offshore wind, how can we make sure the benefits from offshore wind positively affect them? One major answer to this are community benefits plans (CBPs). These plans, which are made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), allow communities facing new infrastructure developments to negotiate with the developer for payments or other concessions. These payments often go towards infrastructure projects or city services to facilitate the extra needs of the new development. They can also help train first responders or go towards the local schools. The payments are often in the millions of dollars and can be a major funding source for the community.^[7] They are a major way the community can benefit from the new development.

Along with CBPs, locals can also get major economic boosts from the job creation and tax revenue spurred by offshore wind and other infrastructure developments. In 2022 alone, The U.S. wind energy industry paid an estimated $1 billion in state and local taxes and had a workforce of over 125,000 workers.^[8] These taxes, paired with a strong CBP, can send large amounts of money to underfunded city services, greatly increasing a city's ability to take care of its residents. The jobs offshore wind can create are also major benefits to communities as they can increase how much residents spend in local stores while giving locals a sense of pride in their jobs.

This summer I worked for a small Maine non-profit focused on making sure the renewable energy transition utilizes and supports union labor. Some of our biggest selling points were the economic benefits for small Maine towns which have lost their major industries to foreign companies. Bringing respectable well-paying jobs back to these communities gave many of the people I talked to so much excitement. Not only would they be able to afford to stay in their home, often owned by their family for generations, but they would have a job that they could be proud of. Too often the voices of these residents are overpowered by the wealthier residents, with waterfront property, who didn’t want the turbines affecting their ocean views. However, these wealthy residents are often in the minority and regular working families see the enormous economic benefits of offshore wind being built or assembled in their communities.

Engagement

So, it's clear that offshore wind shows serious promise as an energy source and also as an economic boon for local communities. However, NIMBYism is still as strong as ever. A multipronged approach will be needed to break through the negative beliefs people have towards offshore wind. A major piece of that approach will be through engagement and education. In an article about NIMBYism related to affordable housing, author Donna Blaze talks about 9 strategies to combat NIMBYism, many of which can be applied to offshore wind.^[9] Four of them really stuck out to me as strategies that I worked with this summer to combat the NIMBYism around the proposed offshore wind port in Maine. The first is to recruit allies, especially local ones. This was of utmost importance to us this summer. We worked with local labor unions, conservation groups, municipalities, and fisheries to make sure all the different stakeholders got their voices heard and got accurate information about the process. Making sure accurate information gets to the public leads me to two of the other strategies that Ms. Blaze mentions: listening to the messaging of the opposition and creating pre development PR. Knowing what messaging we needed to combat and putting out our own positive and accurate messaging helped us get local communities to trust and understand the benefits of the offshore wind port. The last point of Ms. Blaze’s that really hit home was to have your facts ready and reliable. TV and newspaper ads were good but knowing the key talking points when I was talking with locals was even more impactful in getting them to approve of the port. By using these strategies, by recruiting allies, making positive and accurate messaging that takes into account what the opposition is saying, and by knowing the facts, advocacy groups can continue to combat NIMBYism in communities affected by offshore wind.

Incentives

Another one of the prongs in the fight against NIMBYism is incentives, both financial and non-financial. Many of these incentives can be packaged within Community Benefits Plans. However, it is key that the chosen incentives are the right ones for the community. One of the benefits of a CBP is that it can include a whole breadth of benefits for local communities. Just because one CBP has money for first responders doesn’t mean another has too, communities work with developers to make unique agreements that work best for all stakeholders involved. For incentives outside the CBPs, communities can receive reduced energy costs for the area, buy-ins for the project, or new community funds. These incentives can also work to directly fix NIMBY concerns. For instance, if residents are concerned about property tax hikes the developer could give money to the community to subsidize this. If there are concerns about increased traffic, the developer can work to improve the roads. Whatever incentives are chosen, it is paramount that they work for the community. This goes back to the importance of engagement. Staying engaged in the process is critical so any benefits packages can cover the most important needs of a community.

For the developer, paying for these benefits can get them massive support within the community. Therefore, knowing which benefits will get them the most support makes engaging with the community very important for them. Developers don’t want to waste their money on incentives that have no effect on their support within a community. Thus, for both the community and the developer, making sure incentives are aligned with the needs of the locals is very helpful in overcoming NIMBYism and getting support behind offshore wind projects.

Case Study

In an amazing case study of where offshore wind has worked, author Elizabeth Royte writes about the Block Island wind farm in an article in Smithsonian Magazine. She backs up many of the points made throughout this paper. Firstly, she writes, “the loudest people against the wind farm were those who considered the island their summer getaway.” While these residents would fly in from across the country to argue against the offshore wind farm, the year-round residents, who suffered the island's high electricity costs year round, favored the turbines. Like with the Kennedys and Kochs, it is often the seasonal residents with money and power who oppose these projects. However, unlike the Cape Cod example, Block Island’s wind farm was built.

The wind farm was built largely because the stakeholders found the right incentives. For 89 years the island had been powered by enormous diesel burning generators. These generators created a consistent loud drone, often blocking out the sound of nature all around the island. When the island switched over to the offshore wind turbines one resident said, “Suddenly you could hear the leaves rustling, the waves breaking, and the birds.” The community hated the noise and the soot created from the diesel generators, the offshore wind developer was able to use the wind farm to make the generators obsolete. They successfully aligned the wind farm with what the island wanted. Further strengthening the case for the wind farm, and disproving many NIMBY beliefs, fish populations were actually boosted by the new structures in the ocean, with the turbines becoming popular fishing spots. Energy prices also decreased by an average of 44% per KWH and property values did not fall.^[10] The Block Island wind farm has been a huge success in proving the viability of offshore wind and the residents are proud that their small island can be a part in our larger energy transition.

Conclusion

Through examples like Block Island it is clear that offshore wind works, but NIMBYism still persists and thus our fight against it must as well. It is clear that offshore wind creates a powerful source of renewable energy that is more consistent and takes up less valuable space than other renewable alternatives. Like Block Island shows us, offshore wind farms can also reduce energy prices, and with good Community Benefit Plans and incentives, they can boost local economies too. While these things are all true, the wealthiest community members often still oppose offshore wind. They don’t want their summer house’s ocean view obstructed. They also have a smaller stake in local energy prices or the local economy than year-long residents. Thus, using effective community engagement strategies is one of the best tools to get offshore wind built. By making local allies, having good PR, knowing the opponents message, and by knowing the facts when talking with locals, advocates can help motivate communities to push for offshore wind, dispelling the NIMBYism fears created by the wealthy few. It won’t be easy but the data is in, Offshore wind is necessary in our renewable energy transition and it has the power to boost the communities it is located within.

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^[1] FOX News Network. (2017, December 4). Kennedys, Kochs Help kill planned wind farm off Cape Cod. Fox News. https://www.foxnews.com/us/kennedys-kochs-help-kill-planned-wind-farm-off-cape-cod

^[2]Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. (2023, August 21). FOTW #1304, August 21, 2023: In 2023, non-fossil fuel sources will account for 86% of new electric utility generation capacity in the United States | Department of Energy. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1304-august-21-2023-2023-non-fossil-fuel-sources-will-account-86-new

^[3] Durham, P. (2023, February 14). Which renewable energy sources are most reliable?. TECHNIA (US). https://www.technia.us/blog/which-renewable-energy-sources-are-most-reliable/

^[4] Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). Climate Change Impacts on the Ocean and Marine Resources. EPA. https://www.epa.gov/climateimpacts/climate-change-impacts-ocean-and-marine-resources

^[5] Browning, K. (2021, December 25). Offshore wind turbines (All you need to know). Climatebiz. https://climatebiz.com/offshore-wind-turbines/

^[6] How many homes would an acre of solar panels provide. sungoldsolar. (2024, September 14). https://www.sungoldsolar.us/how-many-homes-would-an-acre-of-solar-panels-provide/

^[7]Community benefits agreements database. Community Benefits Agreements Database | Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. (n.d.). https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/community-benefits-agreements-database

^[8]Wind Energy’s economic impacts to communities. WINDExchange. (n.d.). https://windexchange.energy.gov/projects/economic-impacts

^[9]Blaze, D. (2024, August 15). 9 tips for overcoming nimby opposition. Shelterforce. https://shelterforce.org/2021/11/23/9-tips-for-overcoming-nimby-opposition/

^[10]Royte, E. (2022, April 1). This historic community is pushing the nation toward a wind power revolution. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/historic-community-blockisland-pushing-nation-toward-wind-power-revolution-180979789/