January 10, 2020 — One year after Governor Sununu announced plans to investigate offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine, much has been accomplished.
The first official Intergovernmental Task Force meeting — established to gauge the technology’s potential — was held on Dec. 12. Convened by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM for short), the meeting was well attended and provided a great deal of information and clarification on what the Task Force’s next two years will entail.
Still, this meeting was just the beginning — an inflection point that has since sparked the beginning of many other initiatives throughout the region. All with the aim of establishing greater understanding of the gulf’s marine environment and how offshore wind might fit in.
Over the next three to five years, the states of New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts will be gathering information to determine the most appropriate siting locations for offshore wind development. While this data-collection effort includes many moving parts, one word in particular looms largest of all: assessment.