Saving Seafood

New Jersey offshore wind to connect at 2 former power plants onshore

April 12, 2021 — A large offshore wind energy project planned off the coast of New Jersey will connect onshore to two former power plants, and cables will run under two of the state’s most popular beaches, officials said Tuesday.

At a virtual public hearing on the Ocean Wind project planned by Orsted, the Danish wind energy developer, and PSEG, a New Jersey utility company, officials revealed that the project would connect to the electric grid at decommissioned power plants in Ocean and Cape May Counties.

The northern connection would be at the former Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township; the southern connection would be at the former B.L. England plant in Upper Township.

Cables running from the wind farm, to be located between 15 and 27 miles (24 to 43 kilometers) off the coast of Atlantic City, would come ashore at one of three potential locations in Ocean City: 5th Street, 13th Street or 35th Street. They would then run under the roadway along Roosevelt Boulevard out to Upper Township and the former power plant, which closed in 2019.

Scot Mackey, of the Garden State Seafood Association, said the fishing community’s input was not incorporated into final plans for the project.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

Incidental Take Authorization: Ocean Wind, LLC Marine Site Characterization Surveys off of New Jersey

April 5, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has received a request from Ocean Wind, LLC (Ocean Wind) for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to marine site characterization surveys offshore of New Jersey in the area of Commercial Lease of Submerged Lands for Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Lease Area OCS-A 0498 (Lease Area) and potential export cable routes (ECRs) to landfall locations in New Jersey. NOAA Fisheries is requesting comments on its proposal to issue an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities. We are also requesting comments on a possible one-year renewal that could be issued under certain circumstances and if all requirements are met. We will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the issuance of the requested MMPA authorizations and agency responses will be summarized in the final notice of our decision.

Read the full release here

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind critics say farms will damage Shore economies and ruin ocean views

March 11, 2021 — Opposition to New Jersey’s coming surge in offshore wind farms is growing at the Jersey Shore.

The hundreds of wind turbines due to be built up to 20 miles off New Jersey in the next five years or so will spoil ocean views, undermine local economies and hurt wildlife while boosting the profits of overseas developers, critics say.

These opponents reject claims by wind farm builders and their enthusiastic supporters, including Gov. Phil Murphy, that the clusters of turbines are emissions-free. The manufacture and maintenance of the massive steel structures will require huge amounts of fossil fuel-powered energy, they argue.

They also say they fear that the tourism-dependent economies of many Shore towns will be damaged if visitors flee because they don’t want to look at an array of wind turbines on the horizon, or if the new structures disrupt marine life so much that recreational and commercial fishermen stay away.

And if fewer people want to spend time at the Shore, real estate values of coastal properties will drop, the critics predict.

“If people decide they don’t want any part of coming here, they will go elsewhere,” said Suzanne Hornick, administrator of SaveourshorelineNJ, a Facebook page that’s dedicated to opposing the industry, and has about 3,100 members.

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

Some worry N.J. offshore wind project will affect views, fishing, and tourism

February 16, 2021 — A half-dozen people stood on an oceanfront deck with a million-dollar view, asking a hundred questions about what’s on the horizon. On this clear, winter afternoon, it was the Atlantic as far as the eye can see.

By 2024, nearly 100 of the world’s largest, most powerful wind turbines could be spinning 15 miles off the coast. With blades attached, the windmills could reach as high and wide as 850 feet, and simulations created by Orsted, the Danish-based power company behind the Ocean Wind project, show the turbines are visible, faintly, from beaches in Brigantine, Avalon, Stone Harbor, and Joe and Tricia Conte’s deck in Ocean City.

“Some of those pictures are deceptive, though, because they were taken on a cloudy day,” Joe Conte said. “The pictures they have of a clear day give you a much more vivid view of what it’s really going to look like.”

The project will power a half-million homes in New Jersey and, according to Orsted, create thousands of jobs, both offshore and on during the initial construction process, which could begin this year. It has the support of both Gov. Phil Murphy, who has actively pushed for alternative energy in the state, and President Joe Biden.

Murphy’s office did not return a request for comment for this story, but Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, said there was talk of offshore oil wells under past administrations.

Read the full story at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Giant turbines will generate power at New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm

January 7, 2021 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm will also be among the first in the world to be powered by the biggest and most powerful turbines ever built, the project’s developer said.

Ocean Wind, a planned farm about 15 miles off Atlantic City, is due to start operating in 2024, using as many as 99 Haliade-X turbines — giant machines that will tower 853 feet (260 meters) above the ocean’s surface, using blades that are 351 feet (107 meters) long, and can each generate enough electricity to power 16,000 homes.

The technology, built by GE, has a working prototype near the Port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands, but it hasn’t yet been commercially deployed. The turbines are also scheduled to be used for the planned Skipjack wind farm — much smaller than the New Jersey project — off the coast of Maryland, that is expected to start operating by the end of 2023.

GE says each of the turbines, each with a 12-megawatt (MW) capacity, can generate emissions-free electricity that equates to taking 10,000 cars off the road annually.

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

Ørsted to Brief Atlantic City Residents on New Jersey’s First OWF

January 27, 2020 — Danish offshore wind farm company Ørsted is set to host an open house in the first week of February to update Atlantic City residents on the progress of Ocean Wind, New Jersey’s first offshore wind project.

Ørsted was in June 2019 selected as preferred bidder for New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm, to be located 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. Construction is expected to start in the early 2020s, with the wind farm operational in 2024.

Ørsted, formerly known as Dong Energy, will host the open house for Atlantic City residents on Thursday, February 6 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Avalon Conference Center at The Claridge Hotel, located at 123 S. Indiana Avenue, Atlantic City. Free, validated parking will be available in The Claridge’s parking garage, the company said. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m.

Read the full story at Offshore Engineer

PSEG subsidiary contemplates bigger stake in offshore wind

November 7, 2019 — PSEG Long Island’s sister power company is contemplating a second major offshore wind initiative with Danish energy giant, Orsted, in which it could acquire a stake in a massive New Jersey project, even as the company works to help implement separate Orsted wind farms for the South Fork and New York State.

PSEG Power announced last week that it had begun to seek approvals and analyze the prospect of acquiring a 25% stake in a 1,100-megawatt offshore wind farm for New Jersey called Ocean Wind. PSEG Power already had already been working to support the project. And it has a partnership with Orsted predecessor Deepwater Wind for a separate project in waters off New Jersey south of the planned Ocean Wind farm.

Deepwater Wind is the company that successfully bid for an originally 90-megawatt wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Massachusetts that will provide energy to the South Fork. The project was later expanded to 130 megawatts. PSEG Long Island’s power markets group provided the analysis that led to the recommendation of that project, which LIPA’s board approved in January 2017, after nods from town governments in East Hampton and Southampton.

Read the full story at Newsday

NEW JERSEY: Ørsted pitches its Ocean Wind project

August 28, 2019 — Offshore wind energy developer Ørsted is introducing the New Jersey public to its Ocean Wind project – at a planned 1,100 megawatts the largest U.S. waters project to date.

“New Jersey is at the epicenter of offshore wind,” said Kris Ohleth, Ørsted’s senior stakeholder relations manager, as she opened the company’s first meeting in Atlantic City Monday evening. “We can supply the nucleus of the supply chain.”

That’s music to the ears of southern New Jersey political and labor leaders, in a region that never fully recovered from the Atlantic City casino industry’s downturn and construction recession after the 2008 financial meltdown.

Ørsted opened an office in the city last year to prepare for building the Ocean Wind project on a federal lease 15 miles offshore, and it’s expected the company could soon pick a location for its onshore support station and docks on the city waterfront.

That would represent 70 permanent jobs, beyond the 3,000 construction jobs the company predicts for its building cycle through to 2024. The company is already working with the city school system and Richard Stockton University to recruit future workers and plan for training and workforce development.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Offshore wind, fishing industries work to co-exist

August 23, 2018 — Offshore wind farm developer Orsted worked with the fishing community in designing its proposed 800 megawatt Bay State Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, and intends to do the same thing with its Ocean Wind project planned for off Atlantic City, a company biologist said Wednesday.

The company scrapped plans to scatter its 180 turbines to be most efficient in capturing wind, adopting instead a grid pattern at the request of fishermen. The patterned layout would be easier for fishing vessels to maneuver through and fish in, said Laura Morse.

Morse gave a presentation at a symposium on Fisheries and Offshore Energy at the American Fisheries Society’s annual meeting, which opened at the Convention Center here on Sunday and runs through Thursday.

Developers have acknowledged that the construction phase can disrupt fisheries with noise, heavy ship traffic, sediment increases in the water, and other factors. But the operational phase is much less disruptive to fishing, they have said.

Orsted also added two transit lanes, each a mile in width, for vessels to use to get into and out of the busy fishing port of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Morse declined to say how much less efficient the new design will be for generating electricity, calling the information proprietary.

Norway-based Equinor, which is proposing to develop Empire Wind in the New York Bight off North Jersey, has used ‘statements of common ground’ when negotiating with fishermen in the United Kingdom, said its representative Martin Goff.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

Spending a year at sea to find best spots for wind turbines

July 17, 2018 — It’s a little reminiscent of the Beatles’ yellow submarine, but it doesn’t go underwater.

Instead, the bright yellow, boat-like buoy that floated off a dock Monday at Gardner’s Basin will use high-tech instrumentation on deck to help Danish offshore wind company Orsted place wind turbines for its Ocean Wind project, planned for 10 miles off Atlantic City.

If built, Ocean Wind would be New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm, and only the second in the nation after the five-turbine, 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm off Rhode Island.

Company officials have said they could have the wind farm operational by 2025, but only if it is soon awarded state offshore wind energy credits to finance construction. The program to do that is still being created by the state Board of Public Utilities.

Gov. Phil Murphy has committed New Jersey to quickly generate 1,100 megawatts of electricity through offshore wind, 3,500 megawatts from offshore wind by 2030, and 100 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City