How long is it going to take to get electricity from the winds off our coast? Quite a long time, even if everything goes to plan.

But full buildout of the Humboldt Wind Energy Area is going to take even longer. A lot longer. In today’s Conversation, Matthew Marshall of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority talks to us about the current state of play, the potential benefits for local consumers of electricity, and the tortoise-like pace of the project. “A marathon, not a sprint,” Marshall says.

Rough transcript below.

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JOHN KENNEDY O’CONNOR:

Well, welcome to another Humboldt Conversations. I’m here today with Matthew Marshall, who’s the Executive Director of Redwood Coast Energy Authority. Matthew, great to meet you.

MATTHEW MARSHALL:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

O’CONNOR:

Thanks for having a Humboldt Conversation with us. Now, Matthew, there are big plans for the Humboldt Wind Energy Area. And that’s going to be located, I think, about 20 miles off the Humboldt Coast. I think something like 100 floating wind turbines are proposed. What will the energy benefits be from that massive wind farm?

MARSHALL:

Yeah, so from a local perspective, that’s like 10 times as much energy potential as we need for Humboldt County. So we only need like a little chunk of that to meet actually all of Humboldt County’s energy needs. And so really, it’s an opportunity for us to not just meet our own climate goals, but actually to be an exporter of power that can have a contribution to state level goals. Now, there’s a lot of complexity to figuring that out. It’s going to take a lot of time, but I think it’s a great opportunity to really have economic development that’s also supporting our environmental values here as a community.

O’CONNOR:

Now we ran a poll actually on Humboldt Today, and the audience were incredibly enthusiastic about this project and they think it’s really the future of Humboldt County. But there was concern that will the county itself actually benefit? I mean you’re talking about exporting energy. How will the county actually benefit?

MARSHALL:

Yeah, so I think there’s a couple facets to that. One is to make sure that the economic activity that comes with this really creates opportunities for local folks to get involved, and particularly communities that haven’t particularly gotten engaged in these sort of things. And obviously, we’ve had a history of boom and bust economies here. And so something that could be sustainable, I think it’s a good thing. It’s not wind mining. It’s wind farming. So it’s a long-term, long-term commitment. And so if we can have the construction jobs, but also really have those jobs be an opportunity for local businesses, for local residents. And then from the power side of it, I think there’s going to be billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure, both for the project as well as the transmission. And so as folks know, we have infrastructure issues in our community. And so hopefully, we’re going to have to work with state regulators and state decision makers to make sure that when there is those billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure, that we address our local concerns and our local needs, and we’re able to tap into that power and have it be a benefit to us, and not just something that we’re purely exporting. And so I think it’s going to be work to make sure that those things happen. But I think there’s a lot of commitment at the state level. And certainly, I feel like the community is really rallying around, hey, this is a great opportunity for us. It’s big business, but it’s a business that we can get behind because it’s helping address climate change and it’s sustainable long-term opportunity. And so I think we just have to get it right and not repeat the mistakes of the past and learn from that, but then really capitalize on this opportunity as a community.

O’CONNOR:

Now the infrastructure, though, is a big issue, and actually you contributed to a great article with our colleague Izzy Vanderheiden this week because unless it can be transmitted online once the power comes on shore there can be no offshore wind and this is a huge issue.

MARSHALL:

So, you know, we think about just the current wind energy area that’s been identified. We can only use, like I said, about 10% of that power locally. And so you could build 10 turbines and do that, but to actually build it out and reach the economies of scale and the economic development opportunity, you’re going to need transmission infrastructure to get the power out of here. Because like, I think I used the analogy, if you think of highways, it’s like, you know, we have Highway 36 and 299 is like our grid infrastructure is really at that same scale. And for something at this scale, you know, you really need the equivalent of a power like I-5, you know, highway to be able to move that much electricity out of the county. And so that’s going to take billions of dollars of investment to build out that infrastructure. And what we want to make sure is it isn’t just like a flyover where it’s like, well, we’ll just do a main line from, you know, the ocean to San Francisco. And you know, and then we still have, you know, a local grid that’s unreliable. Well, that’s the issue.

O’CONNOR:

Because PG&E have already reached capacity for several areas, Eel River for example, they can’t even get current energy now.

MARSHALL:

Yeah, and the Hoopa Valley and all the communities around there are at the same situation. The distribution lines that go to Cal Poly Humboldt are at capacity. So we’re reaching the critical point of maxing out our local grid capacity, and so we really do need to invest locally. And so it would be a big policy failure if we had billions of dollars of investment in energy infrastructure and we didn’t see these local needs met. Now that said, the transmission upgrades are going to take years and years and years, maybe ten years to get that full build out, and we’re not going to wait ten years to start working on these issues. And that’s something that we’re committed to, and our other local partners, the folks at the Schott Center at Cal Poly Humboldt are looking at ways to build more resilient infrastructure now, and we’re working on it. And so we’re not waiting and holding our breath for offshore wind, but I think it’s an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum that that brings.

O’CONNOR:

The two things very much have to go hand in hand.

MARSHALL:

The investment has to be there. Yeah, I mean, so there’s our local issues and there’s this big picture investment. And so those could converge and be compatible, they could go different directions. And we’re gonna do the local stuff as best we can, but hopefully it’ll be a convergence and not something where it’s like, well, there’s the offshore wind thing and that doesn’t really affect us. That would be not the best case outcome by a long shot. But I think from everything I’ve heard from decision makers at the state level, there’s a commitment to saying, hey, we’re not gonna leave the community behind as this opportunity develops.

O’CONNOR:

And RCEA is very much invested.

MARSHALL:

Yeah, I mean, you know, we’re, we’re, our goal is to serve the community. You know, part of that is economic development in the energy sector. So the, you know, the big picture stuff is exciting and part of our mission, but, you know, first and foremost, we want to address reliability and, you know, that’s some of us not as glamorous, but, you know, we’ve been working with our member jurisdictions, you know, Rio Del that had the earthquake, they had renewable backup power, you know, our, our microgrid system at the county airport has been getting quite the workout with the earthquake and then all the storms, you know, I don’t know how many times I get the text alert. It’s gone into Island mode. And so we’re running the coast guard at the airport off of the microgrid. And so, you know, we want to do more of that kind of work at that local level that really helps with resilience and emergency response and our, and our climate goals, you know, and so that’s for, for RCEA, you know, one of the things that’s really important to us is as we move off of fossil fuels and decarbonize electricity, it’s got to be more resilient and more like responsive to our needs, not less because nobody’s going to be excited if you’re like, Hey, we got to a hundred percent renewables, but the power goes out every day. You know, and so we need to use, you know, the solutions to make us, you know, carbon free also be solutions that make us more resilient and able to respond to emergencies. And so the airport’s one example of that, but I think we really wanted to see those, those kinds of solutions implemented really countywide, you know, across the community.

O’CONNOR:

Well, it’s very positive. There’s a lot of exciting things happening. It’s quite a long way off though. There’s a lot of things that have to happen, but the future is bright.

MARSHALL:

Right. Yeah, the offshore winds is a marathon, not a sprint. And that’s why I wanted to bring up the, you know, we’re not, we’re not holding our breath for that as far as the, you know, addressing local needs and, you know, and we’re really looking at, you know, right now, how do we do more and more, you know, facility level, community level projects. But hopefully again, these things can converge to really kind of get us where we want to be as far as the sustainable energy future.

O’CONNOR:

Well, Matthew, it’s great to meet you. Thank you so much for joining us for a Humboldt Conversation. And we’ll look forward to the next Humboldt Conversation. Take care.