DOE announced the Offshore Wind National and Regional Research and Development Funding Opportunity, which will award $48.6 million for projects that address several major areas of need for offshore wind. The areas include accelerating research and development of floating offshore wind platforms; exploring innovations for fixed-bottom foundations; improving offshore wildlife protection through new monitoring technologies; expanding the reach of the domestic supply chain; advancing U.S. academic leadership in floating offshore wind; and investigating solutions to protect future infrastructure from lightning.

This funding opportunity represents one of DOE’s single largest investments in offshore wind, comprised of $48 million in funding from WETO with $600,000 in funding support from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). Together, successful projects addressing the following topic areas under this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will speed up the use of wind power off U.S. coasts and contribute to a robust clean energy economy driven by a carbon-free power sector.

There are six topic areas in this FOA.

• Topic Area 1: Floating Offshore Wind Platform Research and Development ($20 million): This Topic Area aims to improve floating offshore wind systems through innovation. Projects awarded under the subtopics may focus on near-term needs for initial U.S. floating offshore wind projects, as well as long-term goals to reduce costs and increase efficiency in various aspects like validation, fabrication, installation, and operation.
• Topic Area 2: Innovation for Fixed-Bottom Offshore Wind Foundation Types and Supporting Infrastructure ($7.5 million): This Topic Area aims to increase the industry adoption of novel designs and methodologies for fixed-bottom systems to enable increased manufacturing throughput and broader deployment of offshore wind, including ways to address current areas of concern and limitation.
• Topic Area 3: Technology Advancement to Inform Risk to Birds and Bats from Offshore Wind Energy ($8 million): This Topic Area aims to advance technologies to monitor bird and bat presence and behavior to better understand the risk to species from offshore wind deployment.
• Topic Area 4: Development of a Manufacturing and Supply Chain Offshore Wind Consortium in Great Lakes Region ($5 million): This Topic Area aims to leverage the strengths of the existing industrial base in the Great Lakes region to engage with the national and global offshore wind market by addressing the immediate needs of the domestic offshore wind pipeline through manufacturing, technology innovation, and workforce development.
• Topic Area 5: Floating Offshore Wind Center of Excellence ($3.8 million): This Topic Area, co-funded by DOE and BSEE, aims to seed a university-based education and research ecosystem to support the technical needs of the U.S. floating offshore wind industry and other stakeholders and develop the country’s next generation of leadership for the industry.
• Topic Area 6: Protecting the Future Offshore Wind Fleet against Lightning ($4.3 million): This Topic Area, co-funded by DOE and BSEE, aims to develop a robust understanding of the interaction between wind turbines and lightning within offshore wind farms.