Did You Know? 

Severe Weather is Damaging Maryland Homes, Farms, and Tourist Destinations 

Offshore Wind Overview

• Wind energy is clean and doesn’t pollute the air like coal, gas, oil, and other fossil fuels
• Wind is a renewable, clean and low carbon source of energy that generates electricity and clean low carbon power generation
• Wind power is largest source of renewable electricity in the United States and the United Kingdom
• Wind energy can be generated onshore and offshore in the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean

A Rapidly Growing Source of Renewable Energy Worldwide

• Wind energy is one of the fastest-growing sources of renewable electricity globally.

• Countries leading in wind power development include the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, China, and across the European Union.

• In the United States, wind is currently the largest source of renewable energy, with utility-scale wind plants operating in 41 states.

What You Should Know About Offshore Wind

1. Generating electricity via renewable energy can help reduce the impact of the environmental changes that result in extreme weather, like extreme flooding and saltwater intrusion that leaves sodium deposits devastating to crop growth.
2. Offshore wind is stronger, more consistent and less turbulent than wind turbines built on land. This means more power can be generated more reliably.
3. If you're worried about the environmental impacts of offshore wind, know that offshore drilling for oil poses severe threats to all wildlife, including whales, and poses serious threats to those who rely on those ecosystems for their livelihoods.
4. Extreme weather events pose more of a threat to Maryland's tourism industry on the Eastern Shore and other coastal areas than offshore wind turbines.
5. Studies show that there are very few negative effects on tourism and property values from offshore wind farms. Instead, tourists are drawn to coastal areas to see these innovative clean energy facilities firsthand.

Farms on Maryland's Eastern Shore are suffering from increased flooding from sea-level rise. The whole Delmarva Peninsula is experiencing sea level rise at three times the global average, threatening people's homes and tourist destinations such as Ocean City with severe flooding.

Kate Tully, an agroecologist at the University of Maryland, found that in the six years from 2011-2017, 20,000 farmable acres in the peninsula were transformed into marshland. Tidal surges of saltwater are killing crops and farmland, and wrecking livelihoods.

Public Health and Environmental Benefits of Offshore Wind

An EPA study has shown that replacing fossil fuels—which, when burned, release nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere and cause lasting damage when they settle on land and water—with wind and solar energy can reduce risks of heart attacks and asthma. 

How Can an Offshore Wind Project Benefit Maryland

• Generating offshore wind power to replace coal and oil reduces emissions of air pollutants like fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide that can form smog, soot, and ozone.
• Clean renewable wind energy is low carbon and climate resilient Offshore wind energy infrastructure generates clean renewable energy for electricity for homes, farms, commercial businesses, industrial manufacturing, power plants and communities
• Renewable offshore wind from the Bay and Atlantic Ocean reduces air pollution and climate change greenhouse gas emissions in Chesapeake Airshed and Watershed

Climate change is resulting in global warming and sea level rise in Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean and other waters, which results in flooding and extreme storms.

Offshore Wind Project Updates in Maryland

A poll was conducted in February 2025 by Shore Progress, an Eastern Shore Regional Advocacy Group, and conducted by Gonzales Research & Media Services, Inc.

The poll found that among Eastern Shore residents:

• 51% support building offshore wind farms off the coast of Maryland, while 37% say they would oppose them, with 12% giving no opinion. 
• 54% of Shore residents support a goal of moving away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources, such as offshore wind, with 39% opposed and 7% offering no opinion.

Respondents agreed by significant margins that offshore wind would have positive impacts in

several areas, including 70% who agreed that offshore wind would have a positive benefit

on jobs and 67% who said it would provide health benefits.

• Agreed that offshore wind would bring benefits in five other key areas:

o Air and water quality: 66% – 27%

o Electricity prices: 65% – 25%

o Energy independence: 65% – 26%

o Electricity reliability: 61% - 31%

o Climate change: 56% - 31%

o On the question of whether offshore wind would have a positive impact on ocean

ecosystems and marine life, respondents were evenly split; 43%-43% with 14% Undecided.

Want to learn more?

1. Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Air Pollution- The Invisible Threat

2. Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Climate Change

3. Chesapeake Bay Foundation: Energy

4. Saltwater from rising sea levels threatens future of farming along Chesapeake Bay | PBS News

5. Marine Life: The Casualties of Offshore Drilling

6. Offshore Wind: Tourism and Property Value Benefits | ACP

7. Understanding Offshore Wind

8. IPC Chesapeake Waters and Offshore Wind Fact Sheet

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