Abstract
In 2011, the DOI and DOE published A National Offshore Wind Strategy; the strategy sets a plan to support installation of 10 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2020, and 54 GW by 2030. Of the current offshore wind resources, the majority of the best wind sites occur in deep water. This thesis analyzes the installation of 200, 5 MW turbines at 10 various deep water locations, off the U.S. coast, using the current U.S. fleet of floating cranes. The number of vessel years required to complete the installations was determined by modeling significant wave heights, average wind speeds, and wind gusts during both transit and assembly activities. The model determined, on average, the West Coast would take hundreds of vessel years to install 10 GW of wind power, followed by Hawaii at 65 vessel years, the East Coast at 25 vessel years, the Gulf of Mexico at 13 vessel years, and lastly the Great Lakes at 5 vessel-years. Significant wave height was concluded to have the greatest impact on the number of vessel years required to install deep water wind turbines in the United States. Modeling shows that if allowable significant wave height for vessels to perform installation on the West Coast is increased from .75 meters to 1.5 meters, the number of vessel years required for installation could be decreased between 885 fold (Port Orford, OR) and 12.6 fold (Point Arena, CA). Alternative installation methods, technical, and social challenges are discussed.