The Cape Wind Project, an offshore wind project off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, was proposed in 2001 and only received final approval last year.  Getting regulatory approval required about a decade because this is the first offshore wind farm in the US and approval from all levels of government, federal, state, and local, was required. The 130 proposed turbines would be located more than three miles from shore, making them subject to federal jurisdiction and the inshore infrastructure including roads and power cables make the project subject to state and local jurisdiction as well.  At peak the project has the capacity to generate half a GW of power, but is expected to average 175 MW.  Last year Cape Wind announced a power purchase agreement with National Grid for an initial price of 18.7¢/kWh.

The Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior have announced the first interagency plan on offshore wind energy, to encourage the development of offshore wind power generation in the US.  The National Offshore Wind Strategy includes several high priority Wind Energy Areas in the mid-Atlantic region of the US east coast including the outer continental shelf and off the coast of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia. The objectives of the plan are to reduce the cost of offshore wind (right now offshore wind is one of the most expensive power generation technologies) and to address the issues of the project permitting processes that held up the Cape Wind Project for ten years.

The UK has been leading the world in offshore wind generation capacity.  Britain has a total installed offshore wind capacity of 1.3 GW, followed by Denmark with 854 MW.  In 2010 308 new offshore wind turbines were installed in Europe.  The EWEA predicts that 2011 could see the installation of up to 1.5 GW of new wind capacity in Europe.  The UK has plans for a total of over 25 GW of offshore wind capacity.