The governors of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia announces the formation of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources (SMART-POWER) amongst the three states. The partnership is designed to advance offshore wind projects in the region and promote the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic area as a hub for offshore wind energy as well as its supply chain. Regional cooperation like this will be vital as offshore wind energy expands in the United States.

The SMART-POWER partnership builds off of the investment each state has made to-date in the region to utilize offshore wind as part of its renewable energy policies. The partnership creates a framework for Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia to develop and expand offshore wind energy in the region as well as grow the supply chain and workforce. From a supply chain perspective, coordination and alignment between multiple states regarding future offshore wind capacity procurements could trigger economies of scale, placing downward pressure on project prices and benefitting ratepayers in multiple states.

The following statement can be attributed to Liz Burdock, president & CEO of Business Network for Offshore Wind:

“An alliance between Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia balances offshore wind economic development more evenly across the east coast. The market is now too dynamic and requires such large-scale collaboration that no one state should go it alone; regional cooperation is a must as the industry begins a multi-billion dollar build out over the next decade.”