Wind · Analysis

Pier Wind: Long Beach's bet to build offshore turbines at the dock

The Port of Long Beach wants a purpose-built terminal to assemble floating offshore wind turbines too big to truck in. The leases it would serve are still years out, but the plan and its price tag are already public.

BY THE RENEWABLE ENERGY LA EDITORS · FILED NOVEMBER 2, 2026 · 6 MIN READ ·

A turbine factory on the water

If you live in Long Beach, San Pedro, or Wilmington, the port is already your neighbor: a wall of cranes, stacked boxes, and trucks grinding onto the 710. A proposal from the Port of Long Beach would add something the waterfront has never held, a place to build offshore wind turbines taller than any crane standing there now. The port calls it Pier Wind.

The pitch is easy to state and hard to do. Floating wind turbines bound for California waters are too tall and too heavy to truck in over any road or bridge, so they have to be assembled at the dock and towed out upright. Pier Wind would be that assembly yard. No such turbine floats off our coast yet, but the leases, the port's filings, and the cost estimate are all public and checkable today.

Why it has to be born at the dock

Offshore wind off California is a different animal from the turbines bolted to the seabed off New Jersey. The Pacific floor drops away fast close to shore, too deep to plant a tower on the bottom, so the machines sit on floating platforms held by mooring cables. The tower, the nacelle (the housing at the top that holds the generator and gearbox), and the blades are joined to that float while it is still in port.

A modern floating turbine stands on the order of 850 to 900 feet to the blade tip, with single blades longer than a football field. You cannot cut that into pieces and bolt it back together at sea. At last public report, the port's concept describes roughly 400 acres of new land built out into San Pedro Bay, at a cost on the order of 4.7 billion dollars, phased over many years.

The leases it is betting on

California's offshore wind sits far from Los Angeles, off two stretches of coast: Humboldt, up near the Oregon border, and Morro Bay, on the central coast. The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, auctioned those lease areas to a handful of developers in late 2022. The state, through the California Energy Commission and its AB 525 planning, has set a goal of up to roughly 25 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2045.

Pier Wind is a wager that all of that will need a West Coast factory floor on the water, and that Long Beach, rather than Humboldt or a Bay Area yard, should be it. The players stack up fast: the port (a City of Long Beach department), BOEM in federal waters, the Energy Commission and the State Lands Commission for state waters and filled land, and the California grid operator, CAISO, for the wires. Each has its own clock, and they do not move together.

What is firm and what is not

Firm: the lease areas exist, the auction happened, and the port has published a concept with acreage and a cost estimate you can read for yourself. The engineering problem is real, and floating assembly ports are genuinely scarce on this coast. Humboldt is working on its own terminal up north, which is part of why Long Beach wants to move now.

Not firm: the money. Pier Wind is a proposal, not a funded or fully permitted project, and the port expects to lean on bonds plus state and federal grants that are not yet in hand. Offshore wind schedules slip routinely, and the turbines this yard would serve are years from steel in the water. If the leases up the coast stall, the demand for a Long Beach assembly yard stalls with them.

Worth watching this month

1. Whether the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners takes up any Pier Wind funding, environmental, or permitting item at a public meeting this month, which would be routine but is the clearest public sign the project is moving.

2. Any construction and operations plan or survey filing from the Humboldt or Morro Bay lessees on BOEM's California activities page, since those filings, more than the port's, decide whether an assembly terminal is actually needed.

3. Updated port-readiness or transmission findings in the California Energy Commission's AB 525 offshore wind proceeding, which are easy to miss but set the state's demand for a yard like this.

4. Any state or federal grant announcement for West Coast offshore wind port infrastructure, which has moved slowly so far, so watch it but do not count on it.

5. CAISO transmission planning updates on how far-north and central-coast wind would reach the Los Angeles basin, a slow and technical process that ultimately decides whether the power ever gets here.

Where this dispatch reads

Port of Long Beach, Pier Wind concept, polb.com/port-info/pier-wind, The port's own plan, including the acreage, phasing, and cost estimate cited here.
BOEM, California Offshore Wind Activities (.gov), www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/california, The federal agency's page on the Humboldt and Morro Bay lease areas and their status.
California Energy Commission, AB 525 Offshore Wind (.gov), www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/programs/offshore-renewable-energy, The state's offshore wind planning, goals, and port-readiness analysis.
California State Lands Commission (.gov), www.slc.ca.gov, The state body that leases tidelands and filled land in San Pedro Bay.
CAISO, Transmission Planning, www.caiso.com/planning/Pages/TransmissionPlanning/Default.aspx, The California grid operator's process for connecting new coastal generation to the grid serving the LA basin.

Questions readers have asked

Will Pier Wind put turbines in the water off Long Beach?

No. There are no offshore wind leases off Los Angeles or Long Beach. Pier Wind is an assembly terminal, and the turbines it would build are bound for lease areas off Humboldt and Morro Bay, hundreds of miles up the coast.

Would this raise my electric bill?

Not directly, and not soon. At last public report, the port expects to fund the terminal through its own revenue, bonds, and state or federal grants. Offshore wind power, if it gets built, would show up in statewide rates years from now.

Why build floating turbines at all?

The Pacific seafloor drops off too steeply near shore for turbines fixed to the bottom. Floating platforms, anchored by cables, are the practical option off California, and they have to be assembled upright in a deep port before being towed out.

Is this a done deal?

No. Pier Wind is a proposal with a concept design and a cost estimate, not a funded, permitted project. It depends on the leases up the coast moving ahead and on money that is not yet committed.