Wind · Analysis

Morro Bay's wind lease is a decade of maybe

California's flagship offshore wind area off the central coast has been leased for years, but no turbine floats there yet. Here is what still stands between the Morro Bay lease and power on an LA meter, with the dates honestly hedged.

BY THE RENEWABLE ENERGY LA EDITORS · FILED OCTOBER 4, 2026 · 6 MIN READ ·

What the auction actually sold

In December 2022, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM, the agency that leases the seafloor off the coast) auctioned five areas off California, three of them in the Morro Bay Wind Energy Area. Developers including Equinor and Invenergy won the Morro Bay tracts, paying a combined sum on the order of hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to study and, eventually, propose projects there.

A lease is not a permit to build. Each company still has to file a Construction and Operations Plan (the detailed blueprint BOEM reviews, with environmental study and public comment) before a single anchor goes in the water. At last public report, none of the Morro Bay leaseholders had a federally approved plan, and that review runs years, not months, so treat any "first power" date you hear as a hope, not a schedule.

Why these turbines have to float

The water in the Morro Bay area drops off fast, on the order of half a mile deep across much of the lease, far too deep for the fixed foundations used off the East Coast and in Europe. California's turbines would float instead, tethered to the seafloor by mooring lines and cables, a design that works but has been built at commercial scale in only a handful of places worldwide.

Winter swells, long-period Pacific storms, and the summer marine layer that locals call June gloom all shape what a floating platform must survive and how often crews can reach it. Strong wind and big seas are the same weather, so the engineering that captures the one has to hold up in the other, and that is a large part of why the schedules keep slipping.

The ports are the real bottleneck

Floating turbines are too big to truck in pieces, so they get assembled at a deepwater port and towed out whole. California does not yet have a port built for that. On the north coast, the Humboldt Bay Harbor District is developing a heavy-lift terminal with state and federal help; in the south, the Port of Long Beach has proposed a large floating-wind assembly terminal, sometimes called Pier Wind, at a cost on the order of several billion dollars and a timeline stretching into the 2030s.

For the LA basin specifically, the open question is not just the turbines but the wire. Power landed near the central coast has to reach Southern California load, and the existing lines around the retiring Diablo Canyon plant are one much-discussed path. None of that transmission is contracted or built yet, and who pays for it is its own long fight at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Worth watching this month

1. Watch BOEM's California activities page for any Construction and Operations Plan filing or public scoping notice tied to the Morro Bay leases, the first real sign of a project taking shape.

2. Track the California Energy Commission's offshore wind docket for any change to the state's planning goals, which at last public report aimed at roughly 25 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2045.

3. Look for any Port of Long Beach board vote or funding award on the Pier Wind terminal, since no major floating project moves without a port behind it.

4. Follow the Humboldt Bay Harbor District for construction milestones on its heavy-lift terminal, the project furthest along on the port side.

5. Keep an eye on the CPUC and CAISO transmission planning process for any central coast line tied to offshore wind, routine paperwork now that quietly decides whether this power ever reaches LA.

Where this dispatch reads

BOEM, California offshore wind activities (federal agency, .gov), www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/california, Lease maps, leaseholders, and any Construction and Operations Plan or scoping notices as they are filed.
California Energy Commission, offshore wind (state agency, .gov), www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/topics/renewable-energy/offshore-renewable-energy, The state's offshore wind planning goals and reports under AB 525.
CAISO transmission planning (California grid operator), www.caiso.com/planning, How and whether offshore power would connect to the grid that serves Southern California.
Port of Long Beach, Pier Wind, polb.com/port-info/pier-wind, The port's own pages on the proposed floating-wind assembly terminal, its cost, and its timeline.
Humboldt Bay Harbor District, humboldtbay.org, Progress on the north coast heavy-lift terminal, the port effort furthest along in the state.

Questions readers have asked

Will this lower my LADWP bill soon?

No. Nothing is built, and the earliest plausible power from these leases is sometime in the 2030s. Any effect on your bill is years away and far from certain.

Why not just build more desert solar instead?

Solar stops at sundown, and offshore wind tends to blow hardest in the evening and overnight, so the two cover different hours. State planners want both, not one in place of the other.

Would the turbines be visible from shore?

The lease sits roughly 20 miles or more offshore, so on a clear day they might be faintly visible, but the marine layer hides the horizon much of the year. Exact visibility depends on the final layout, which is not set.

Is this a done deal?

No. The companies hold leases, not permits, and projects this size can shrink, slip by years, or stall if the economics or the transmission do not come together.