By Jeffrey Karp and Kevin Fink

As previously discussed, offshore wind is  well-developed outside the United States. In Europe, the first offshore wind facility was installed in 1991, and a record 3,148 MW of capacity was added in 2017. In comparison, the first and only operating offshore wind farm in the U.S. is Block Island, a 30 MW facility off the coast of Rhode Island, which began operation in 2016. While the U.S. lags behind European wind energy leaders, Northeast states have sought to facilitate large scale offshore wind development by setting goals and awarding contracts to offshore lease areas. These recent activities have been met with optimism and promise; however, there still are challenges beyond initially securing leases that must be met before offshore wind projects in the U.S. are successfully implemented from start to finish.