July 2, 2021 — A new committee associated with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is taking on a study of how planned wind turbines off the U.S. East Coast may affect vessel radars.
Knowing how mariners will see turbine towers on radar – and see each other’s vessels moving past them – will help the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in planning for those projects.
With BOEM aiming to have environmental reviews for 16 of those projects by 2025, the agency is looking to expand understanding of how marine radars can be affected, said Arianna Baker, a BOEM program analyst, during an introductory online meeting June 29 with committee members. The National Academies committee mission is “to assess impacts of offshore wind turbine generators on marine vessel radar and identify techniques that can be used to mitigate those impacts,” according to an announcement of the meeting.
Previous studies the agency is looking at include one by the British Wind Energy Association that examined the Kentish Flats project near approaches to the Port of London during 2006, a time of smaller, less powerful turbines and earlier generations of marine radar. A 2007 report from that study described radar reflections, mirror images and other phenomena seen by operators.
Now BOEM is reviewing plans by developers to erect 12- to 14-megawatt turbines, and how that could affect the radar images mariners use in navigation.