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Construction for N.J.’s 1st ocean wind farm begins onshore. Here’s what to expect.

October 10, 2023 — Onshore construction for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm kicked off in Lacey Township on Monday, with more work slated for Island Beach State Park next week.

The Oct. 10 construction includes work to ultimately install copper and aluminum cables meant to connect with the electric grid at substations located at former power plants in Ocean and Cape May Counties.

Work at the state park will run from this month to May 2024 before resuming next September so as to not disturb summer tourism, according to officials with Danish energy developer, Ørsted.

Read the full article at NJ.com

 

The headwinds and tailwinds affecting offshore wind in the Northeast, explained

October 5, 2023 — There’s a lot happening in the offshore wind world right now, especially in the Northeast. And depending on what articles you read, the industry is booming or teetering on financial failure.

The reality is probably somewhere in between. There are headwinds and tailwinds, producing what one person in the industry described as “whiplash in headlines.”

Making sense of it all can be tough. But the stakes are high: Climate change is happening and electricity demand in the region is projected to rise precipitously over the next decade as people buy electric vehicles and heat pumps.

Several New England states, plus New York and New Jersey, are counting on offshore wind to help meet their decarbonization and electrification goals — not to mention banking on the industry to create clean energy jobs and revitalize once-thriving port cities like New Bedford and New London.

A year and a half ago, things looked rosy for offshore wind. States signed 20-year contracts for cheap electricity. Companies announced or started to build manufacturing facilities to help create a domestic supply chain for the industry. Even the Cape Wind controversy of the 2010s seemed more and more like a hiccup in the story of the American offshore wind revolution.

But then came a global inflation crisis, new supply chain disruptions and a growing movement of people calling for a pause on offshore wind development as dead humpback whales washed up on beaches.

Read the full article at wbur

NEW JERSEY: Public opinion in NJ is turning fast on clean energy question

October 5, 2023 — Most New Jersey residents agree that climate change is a real concern, but fewer people today believe that offshore wind farms are a good idea for the Garden State.

The latest poll out of Stockton University recorded a 30-point drop in support for New Jersey’s plans to build wind turbines at sea to generate electricity, compared to four years ago.

Fifty percent of New Jersey adults are in favor of offshore wind for the state, compared to 80% in 2019, the poll finds. Thirty-three percent of adults in the latest poll say they oppose offshore wind farms, compared to 15% in 2019.

“When the concept of wind farms moved from abstract policy considerations to preparing for actual construction, many residents, said, ‘Not in my backyard, or at least not off my beach,” said John Froonjian, director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton.

Read the full article at SOJO

TotalEnergies, Macquarie’s Corio bet on U.S. offshore wind as sector wobbles

October 3, 2023 — A wind energy developer owned by France’s TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) and a unit of Macquarie (MQG.AX) said on Monday it is bidding to build a wind farm off New Jersey’s coast, expressing confidence in the sector after a series of U.S. setbacks.

Spinning power from coastal wind turbines is central to President Joe Biden’s plan to decarbonise the U.S. economy by 2050, but his installation targets are slipping out of reach due to soaring costs, high interest rates and supply chain delays

Bucking that trend, developer Attentive Energy has now proposed to build a site with up to 1.34 gigawatts (GW), capable of powering more than 600,000 homes. Corio Generation, a dedicated offshore wind developer owned by the green investment unit of Australian conglomerate Macquarie, joined TotalEnergies in Attentive Energy last month.

“We are confident in the long-term outlook and fundamentals for U.S. offshore wind,” said Corio Generation Chief Executive Jonathan Cole.

Read the full article at Reuters

Wind power project in New Jersey would be among farthest off East Coast, company says

October 2, 2023 — A proposed wind energy project off New Jersey would be among the farthest from land on the East Coast, the New York-based development company said Monday.

Attentive Energy released new information on the project, which will be 42 miles (67 kilometers) off Seaside Heights and provide enough energy to power 600,000 homes. State regulators did not identify the company when bids were received in August — one of four received as the state pushes to become the East Coast hub of the nascent offshore wind industry.

Wind power developers have struggled to make progress, however, due to supply chain issues, higher interest rates, and a failure so far to garner enough tax credits from the federal government.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

NEW JERSEY: Another New Jersey survey shows sharp plunge in support for offshore wind

September 29, 2023 — A new Stockton University Poll shows New Jersey public support for building offshore wind turbines took a steep dive over the past four years, especially among residents in areas along the ocean and bays – where the plans for wind power once enjoyed 77 percent support.

Today that support has plunged to 33 percent among the latest poll respondents in coastal areas, the Stockton pollsters reported this week.

The findings follow months of intense news coverage about whale strandings on Jersey Shore beaches, and furious campaigning from offshore wind project opponents who say construction will damage the fishing industry. Another big worry is how visual impact of turbines seen from the beach could hurt property values and the summer tourism economy.

Overall support among New Jersey residents still favors offshore wind energy development, with 50 percent in favor of the state’s plans to for building turbines arrays and 33 percent opposed, leaving 16 percent were unsure.

Yet statewide, “the results reflect a drop of 30 percentage points from the findings of a September 2019 Stockton Poll that asked an identical question,” noted pollsters with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton. “In 2019, 80 percent of adult New Jersey residents supported offshore wind farms.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NOAA Partners With Offshore Wind Industry on Environmental Monitoring

September 18, 2023 — NOAA and Community Offshore Wind (COSW) – a joint venture between RWE and National Grid Ventures – have signed a 5-year cooperative research and development agreement to exchange data and expertise. The agreement focuses on informing development of an environmental monitoring program for COSW’s offshore wind project off New York and New Jersey.

The partnership is the first of its kind in the offshore wind industry, creating a platform for developers and federal experts to work together in monitoring potential impacts of development on marine ecosystems.

The research cooperation also supports NOAA’s ongoing environmental monitoring across the New York Bight. This process will inform best practices for establishing environmental observation systems on new offshore wind projects in the region.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Scientists Eye Offshore Wind’s Effects on the Atlantic’s Crucial Cold Pool

September 18, 2023 — Every year, as the surface water temperature off the United States’ mid-Atlantic coast rises steadily from late spring through the summer, a pocket of uncharacteristically cool and crisp water gets trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Packed with nutrients, this thick band of cold water, known as the mid-Atlantic cold pool, is a vital home for shellfish species like surf clams and sea scallops. Extending at its seasonal peak from Nantucket, Massachusetts, to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, the cold pool fosters a diverse ecosystem ranging from small algae to migratory fish—and some of the most valuable shellfish fisheries in the United States.

The mid-Atlantic cold pool has been a reliable oceanographic feature for more than 1,000 years. Nowhere else in the world can you find such a large summer temperature difference between the water at the ocean’s surface and at the bottom. Now, however, two pressures have scientists worrying about whether the cold pool will persist. The first is no surprise: climate change. Over the past five decades, climate change has destabilized the cold pool, causing it to warm and shrink. Compared with 1968, the cold pool is now 1.3 °C warmer and has lost more than one-third of its area.

The second concern is less intuitive and less certain. In 2023, the US federal government approved plans to install 98 wind turbines off the New Jersey coast, covering an area of more than 300 square kilometers. Construction is slated to start this fall and the completed project should have a capacity of about 1,100 megawatts. That’s enough to power roughly 380,000 homes. Yet anchoring so many turbines to the seafloor could have unexpected consequences for the temperature stratification that keeps the cold pool intact. That’s why Travis Miles, a physical oceanographer at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, and his colleagues are investigating how the budding wind farm might affect how and when the cold pool forms and breaks down.

Read the full article at Hakai Magazine

Rules to protect whales issued to offshore wind firm prepping for N.J. construction

September 14, 2023 — As developers get closer to building the Jersey Shore’s first offshore wind turbines, the safety of marine mammals continues to be an important factor.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday issued Ørsted a construction authorization that outlines rules for protecting whales and dolphins while installing monopiles, turbines and other offshore wind infrastructure for its first project.

The number of stranded whales on the Atlantic Coast this year reached 62, including nearly two dozen in New York and New Jersey. Although three federal agencies and various experts have repeated that scientific evidence has yet to connect the strandings to offshore wind development, the Marine Mammal Protection Act requires the permit.

Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 1 will be crucial in Gov. Phil Murphy’s larger ambition for New Jersey to become a leader in the clean energy alternative on the Eastern Seaboard.

Read the full article at NJ.com

Offshore wind energy plans advance in New Jersey amid opposition

September 14, 2023 — Two major offshore wind power projects are taking steps forward in New Jersey as the owners of one project agreed to bring the federal government in on their environmental monitoring plans at an earlier stage than has ever been done, and federal regulators said plans for another project are not expected to kill or seriously injure marine life.

They come as New Jersey continues to grow as a hub of opposition to offshore wind projects from residents’ groups and their political allies, mostly Republicans. The state’s Democratic governor and Democratic-controlled Legislature want to make the state the East Coast leader in offshore wind energy.

Community Offshore Wind, a joint venture between Essen, Germany-based RWE and New York-based National Grid Ventures, on Thursday announced a five-year partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to promote the exchange of data and expertise on environmental monitoring for offshore wind projects.

The agreement will bring the federal agency into the company’s planning process at a much earlier stage than is currently done in the offshore wind industry, an arrangement that could become the new industry standard, according to company president Doug Perkins.

“Instead of us coming up with this on our own and getting some feedback from the agencies, we will work together to make sure that it’s efficient in the data they collect,” he said. “It creates the opportunity, the avenue for us to engage with them, and for them to engage with us, to make sure that our plans, how we’re sampling, where we’re sampling, when we’re sampling, fits with what they do and with what will be required of the industry.”

Read the full article at ABC News