Bay State Wind Archives - Saving Seafood

Right whale defenders question energy industry donations

April 27, 2022 — A group opposing wind projects off the coast of Massachusetts released a report Tuesday that documents contributions from wind energy developers to environmental groups in the state, donations that the authors of the report say cast questions on the ability of groups to analyze the impacts that wind projects have on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

The report, released by the Save Right Whales Coalition, catalogs $4.2 million between wind developers like Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind, and Orsted to environmental groups in Massachusetts such as the Environmental League of Massachusetts, New England Aquarium, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

The flow of money, coalition member Lisa Linowes said, raised a “red flag” for potential conflicts of interest when it comes to investigating the environmental impacts of offshore wind development in places where the North Atlantic Right Whale resides. The whale is one of the most endangered large whale species in the world, according to NOAA Fisheries.

“The public has come to trust the word of these organizations, that when they say wind turbines can be safely sited within and near the waters where the right whale lives, breeds, feeds, that they will be safe,” Linowes said. “Based on their public statements and based on the donations … we should question the priorities of these organizations.”

Bay State Wind submits second proposal for wind farm in Martha’s Vineyard

August 27, 2019 — Bay State Wind, a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource, has submitted a proposal for offshore wind energy generation in Martha’s Vineyard.

The proposal was submitted on Aug. 23 in response to the commonwealth’s second Request for Proposals.

A previous bid was made by Vineyard Wind, a joint venture by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables.

Gov. Charlie Baker had previously shown his support for the project, meeting with the Interior Secretary, David Bernhardt, who oversees the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at MassLive

Vineyard Wind navigates travel lane dispute

Fishermen want wider corridors than those wind farm has backed.

December 14, 2018 — A dust-up has emerged over vessel travel lanes in the vast offshore wind area south of the Islands, with wind farm development companies at odds and fishermen giving mixed reviews.

“We support establishing transit corridors through the wind energy areas,” said Lauren Burm, a spokeswoman for Bay State Wind, which has signed a lease in the area but does not yet have a contract to sell its wind power. Although progress has been made on the corridor layout, a consensus is still needed with fishermen and with new companies that may lease remaining areas, Burm said.

Vineyard Wind, under the pressure of a tight schedule to begin construction next year of an 84-turbine wind farm, announced Monday that it supports the proposed 2-nautical-mile-wide vessel travel corridors. But the company’s 800-megawatt wind farm is northeast of any of the proposed corridors, so it may not be an issue until the company needs to expand. “We’re amenable to discussing a wider corridor,” company spokesman Scott Farmelant said.

The proposed corridors are not as wide as commercial fishermen might like.

“It’s a good starting point,” said lobsterman Lanny Dellinger, chairman of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council Fisheries Advisory Board. But the commercial fishing industry has been pretty adamant about wanting 4 miles in width, Dellinger said. Fishermen need plenty of room to allow their large and slow-moving vessels to navigate safely in poor weather and recover safely in emergencies such as engine trouble, he said.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Bay State Wind to host open house

November 19, 2018 — Bay State Wind will host an open house on Wednesday, Dec. 5, to hear from the public about the development of an offshore wind project off the southern Massachusetts coast, according to a press release. The open house will run from 4 to 6 pm at the Loft Restaurant, with a brief presentation about the project at 4:30 pm. Guests will hear about the status of the project and offshore wind in the region from Orsted staff and have a chance to discuss the environmental, economic, and technical issues, and to visit an offshore wind farm through a virtual reality experience, as well as to voice their opinion about Bay State Wind’s project.

Read the full story at The MV Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Bay State Wind alters proposal to allow more distance between turbines

August 9, 2018 — As offshore wind companies jockey for position in preparation for Massachusetts’ next round of bidding, Bay State Wind announced an adjustment to its proposal earlier this week.

According to Lauren Burm, the head of public affairs for Bay State Wind, after speaking with “key stakeholders including the fishing community,” the company altered its proposal in terms of spacing between turbines to a nautical mile in rows running east to west..

“Based on their helpful feedback we have adjusted our layout to better accommodate fishing patterns and vessel transiting through the wind farm, while also maintaining efficiency and maximizing power production,” Burm said.

Those within the industry disagree that the adjustment by Bay State Wind, a partnership between Orstead and Eversource, helps fishermen navigate.“There’s no way a mile spacing would result in a safe transit,” New Bedford scalloper Eric Hansen said.

Similar sentiment has been expressed in the past by fishermen.

Hansen said he traveled to Europe, specifically Great Britain, to learn more about the offshore wind farms.

He said the turbines are spaced less than a mile apart, however, the fishing vessels are much smaller, too.

When he spoke to fishermen across the pond, he learned they were wary of navigating between the turbines.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Bay State Wind alters layout for offshore wind farm, but fisheries call foul

August 8, 2018 — Bay State Wind LLC is changing the turbine layout of its 800-MW Bay State Offshore Wind Project to accommodate the U.S. commercial fishing industry’s ability to work between turbines. But fisheries say the changes are too little, too late and underscore their growing frustration with the offshore wind sector.

Bay State Wind, a partnership between Danish energy developer Ørsted A/S and New England utility Eversource Energy, announced on Aug. 6 that the new plan reorganizes wind turbines in rows running east-to-west and incorporates one nautical mile between rows to allow fishing vessels more space to travel through, “keeping in mind the need to balance safe navigation, fishing concerns and clean energy production.” The updated turbine layout will be included in Bay State Wind’s construction and operations plan that it intends to submit to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management by early 2019.

However, the commercial fishing industry is not satisfied with Bay State Wind’s changed layout. Meghan Lapp, fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based frozen seafood producer Seafreeze Ltd., said one-mile-wide transit lanes can make it dangerous for trawl vessels to fish with their nets without hitting other boats or project infrastructure. Buffer zones for each side of a transit lane are also needed due to potential radar interference from the turbines.

“Unfortunately, developers only seem to do what is convenient for them at a low cost in response to fishing issues and concerns,” Lapp said. “The right step for a long-term working relationship between the fishing and wind industries is to address these and other commercial fishing concerns before we reach the stage of construction plans. Which is not being done in any meaningful way.”

Bonnie Brady, director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said the frustration with Bay State Wind’s project is not unfamiliar. She recalled similar issues with Deepwater Wind‘s Deepwater Offshore Wind Energy Center (South Fork Wind Farm) proposed off of Rhode Island, which has a turbine layout that would require fisheries to make detours that would add hours and costs to fishing trips.

Read the full story at S&P Global Market Intelligence

Bay State Wind Revises Turbine Layout To Make It More ‘Fishing-Friendly’

August 7, 2018 — In response to feedback from fishermen and community members, Bay State Wind has revised the turbine layout pattern for its Massachusetts offshore wind project.

The new plan realigns the layout so that the turbines are located in rows running east to west, the preferred orientation for fishing, according to the developer. The updated layout also includes an average of one nautical mile between turbine rows to create distinct fishing corridors while continuing to optimize wind energy production.

According to Bay State Wind, feedback from the local fishing community indicated that the irregular pattern of the previous plan could make fishing in and transiting through the wind farm area difficult, especially in bad weather or during towing or setting gear.

Bay State Wind is a partnership between global offshore wind developer Ørsted and New England electric transmission company Eversource. The partners will submit a construction and operations plan to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in early 2019, which will include the updated turbine layout.

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

Massachusetts: Largest U.S. contract to date makes SouthCoast a hub for offshore wind

May 29, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Now we have an industry, not just a plan.

That’s the feeling among would-be suppliers and others after Massachusetts and Rhode Island awarded offshore wind contracts on Wednesday to two developers for a combined 1,200 megawatts of power.

Though subject to negotiation and permitting, the Massachusetts award of 800 megawatts essentially green-lights the largest U.S. offshore wind farm to date. Together, the two projects could power about 620,000 homes, according to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.

Even Bay State Wind, whose bid was not successful, is looking forward to a bright future in the region.

“This is the first of what we think will be many more to come,” said Lauren Burm, a spokeswoman for Ørsted, one of the partners behind Bay State Wind. She said solicitations on the Eastern seaboard are expected to exceed 7,000 megawatts in the next 10 years.

And Ørsted is moving on.

On May 17, the Danish company opened an office in Atlantic City for a prospective wind farm off New Jersey, where it holds another lease in federal waters.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a renewable energy law on May 23, the same day Massachusetts and Rhode Island made their awards. In it, he codified in law his previously stated goal of buying 3,500 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030. The state has not issued a request for proposals.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Tricia Jedele: Offshore wind rush is irresponsible

May 21, 2018 — In an April opinion piece, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote that “affordable, reliable, and abundant American energy drives domestic jobs and prosperity.” If by “drives domestic jobs and prosperity” Zinke meant “threatens the very existence of New England fishermen,” then the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island (which represents Rhode Island commercial fishermen) would agree.

Right now, Zinke’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is reviewing a construction and operation plan submitted by Vineyard Wind. Vineyard Wind is a project company owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, a company based in the industrial port city of Bilbao, Spain. These companies plan to install a massive offshore wind project in the waters south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. In the first phase of the project alone, according to the plan, Vineyard Wind will install between 88 and 106 wind turbine generators, up to four electrical service platforms, 156.4 nautical miles of cable, and up to three offshore export cables that are each 122.5 nautical miles long. And this is just the first project.

There are two other project companies also vying for state contracts and state and federal approvals. Deepwater Wind’s Revolution Wind could be built off the Massachusetts’ coast at various sizes up to 400 megawatts in its first phase. Bay State Wind, a 50-50 joint venture between Ørsted (a company based in Denmark) and Eversource Energy, is a proposed offshore wind project located 25 miles off the Massachusetts’ coast and 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard with the potential to build up to 2,000 megawatts of wind power in the area. Combined and fully developed, these projects could install more than 500 turbines in the waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

Massachusetts: Series of Hearings on Offshore Wind Starts in New Bedford

April 17, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The waters off the coast of Massachusetts have been a popular topic of conversation as of late. From the ban of commercial fishing in nearly 5,000 square miles of coastal waters in 2016 to the ripple effect of the restrictions put on the industry following the indictment of “Codfather” Carlos Rafael, the area has procured the interests of the local, state, and federal government.

It’s also developed an interest in the offshore wind industry from the government as well as private enterprise, with companies already establishing a foothold in the area. One of those companies, Vineyard Wind, is planning to construct and operate turbines in an area just 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, if awarded a state contract.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) along with representatives of Vineyard Wind and the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board kicked off a series of public meetings in New Bedford detailing the project on Monday night.

At the meeting, held at the Waypoint Event Center along the city’s waterfront, the public was provided an overview of the plans for the project’s development in the federal waters off the coast of the state. Those in attendance also got the opportunity to either submit questions and comments to BOEM privately or speak out to them directly at the meeting.

Environmental Coordinator of BOEM Brian Krevor began the meeting with a presentation of the federal guidelines, laws, and construction operation plan for offshore wind development. Currently, two of the four areas designated for wind farms have been acquired by two companies, Bay State Wind and Vineyard Wind. The remaining two areas are still open for bidding.

Read the full story at WBSM