Offshore wind farms are becoming part of America and the world's renewable energy landscape.

And now the Gulf of Maine is being considered a possible site for offshore wind development.

In this series of stories, you'll learn about this emerging technology and what it might mean for you, our coastal communities and the Gulf of Maine's natural environment.

In this story, part four of 11 we'll dive into the basics of how your home is powered and the implications of offshore wind on the power grid.

The wind turbines are arranged in rows so that they'll be, and they'll be able to connect to all the cables together in one place to and then bring them to what's called a substation, so that all that power gets gathered into one spot.

The power moves through an export cable from the wind farm to a land based grid.

The power grid in New England is managed by ISO New England.

It's an independent, not for profit corporation that keeps electricity flowing throughout the region.

It also oversees the wholesale market.

The interconnection that we're connected to here actually is a single interconnection that extends all the way out to the Rockies and all the way down to the Gulf Coast.

It's one single interconnected entity.

But we are kind of in the corner of it as you as you might think.

And that does make our system a little bit more prone to some issues, that we have to plan for and make sure that we're covered for, to make sure that our system remains stable.

Currently, the electricity that arrives at your home or business is generated by several sources.

It's, it's a mix of different things in the region.

There's imports, which are going to be predominantly hydropower from, Quebec.

Within the region, natural gas is our predominant, from a production perspective, our predominant fuel.

There's also, contribution from, three nuclear generators that we have within New England.

But the growing, part of our production, that continues to grow day to day and well into the years is from renewables.

Those are predominantly solar, wind and also now being added, electric storage.

Demand for electricity throughout New England is somewhat unpredictable.

It fluctuates by time of day and from season to season.

What is certain is that the demand for electricity is going to grow.

Potentially significant.

And to give some approximate numbers, our approximate expected peak demand this year is, is 26,000MW of load on our system.

The federal government estimates that the eight lease areas identified in August 2024 have the potential for 13GW of generation capacity.

Enough to power 4.6 million homes.

Now, the 26 thousand megawatts of demand is expected to grow into the future.

It'll grow because of natural low growth, but also because of the further decarbonization of the economy as we electrify transportation and heating sectors.

Take a look at a utility bill and you'll see what you pay for.

There's a cost to create the power and a charge to get it to your home or business.

So the costs of the power bill go to a number of places.

It's to pay for the distribution lines to carry the power into your house, and the transmission lines that that move the power across the region.

So to pay for the fixed costs to provide for those facilities to be there.

And then the other major place that the power goes is to pay for the costs of the generation that was produced to the generators.

If offshore wind does come to the Gulf, it will be one part of the renewable energy mix.

What it might mean for the amount owed line on your utility bill is hard to predict.

One thing to think about for something like offshore wind is it it will have relatively a high construction or capital cost.

And if you think about building this infrastructure offshore and the types of materials that are needed and the installation equipment and other things that are needed, it's it's a lot of infrastructure.

But once they're built and in service, the ongoing production costs are relatively low because it's the wind is just blowing and you're capturing the natural resource.

The Winds of Change in the Gulf of Maine series is a co-production of New Hampshire PBS and New Hampshire Sea Grant, with support from the University of New Hampshire.

Production funding was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.