March 8, 2021 — The Biden administration took a crucial step Monday toward approving the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a project that officials say will launch a massive clean-power expansion in the fight against climate change.
Biden accused of playing politics on Vineyard Wind
March 4, 2021 — When the Trump administration dragged its feet on the environmental permitting of Vineyard Wind, wind energy proponents in Massachusetts and across the country cried foul, claiming politics was driving the process.
But now that the Biden administration is in office, the same claim is surfacing as the president quickly moves in the opposite direction.
The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which advocates for the US fishing industry, on Wednesday released comments it sent to Amanda Lefton, the new head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, questioning how her agency could simply revive a regulatory process that had been terminated by the same agency (which was then under Trump’s oversight) in December.
“It would appear that fishing communities are the only ones screaming into a void while public resources are sold to the highest bidder, as BOEM has reversed its decision to terminate a project after receiving a single letter from Vineyard Wind,” the alliance said in a statement.
Vineyard Wind has gone through a lengthy review process, in part because it’s the first major offshore wind farm to go through the process. The company submitted a construction and operations plan, or COP, to the federal government in December 2017. A year later the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a draft environmental impact statement on the project, which was pulled back after the agency decided it couldn’t review the project in isolation from a host of other wind farm projects being proposed up and down the coast.
BOEM resumes final environmental review for Vineyard Wind
March 4, 2021 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on Wednesday announced it is resuming preparation of a final environmental impact statement on the Vineyard Wind offshore energy project, reversing a move to end the permitting process in the final weeks of the Trump administration.
Vineyard Wind official submitted a Jan. 22 letter to BOEM asking to restart the process, and in a March 3 Federal Register notice the agency said it is moving ahead.
The planned 800-megawatt project off southern Massachusetts was awaiting a final record of decision on a draft EIS when the developers withdrew their construction and operations plan Dec. 1, 2020, saying they needed to “conduct additional technical and logistical reviews” to modify the plan for using larger, more powerful GE Haliade-X turbines.
BOEM came back with a Dec. 16 Register notice that because of Vineyard Wind’s withdrawal it was terminating the environmental impact study. The agency and its parent Department of Interior said the developers would need to start the permitting process over if they wanted to proceed.
As Ørsted seeks interconnection site, Skipjack delayed until 2026
March 3, 2021 — Ørsted, the Danish multinational green energy company developing the Skipjack Wind Farm off Delaware’s coast, has delayed plans to bring its wind turbines online until the second quarter of 2026, four years after what it originally proposed.
The delay comes as Ørsted is continuing to search for sites for Skipjack’s transmission cable to make landfall and to build an interconnection site. Ørsted originally planned to do so at Fenwick Island State Park under a memorandum of understanding with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
Those plans were ultimately dropped last July, after it became clear that construction would disturb wetlands at the state park.
“Ørsted is using the additional time created to further investigate, evaluate, and optimize critical components of the project like cable landfall and interconnection,” said Brady Walker, Ørsted’s Mid-Atlantic market manager. “We are committed to a transparent process in making this important decision and will engage stakeholders at all levels before any final decisions are made.”
Biden faces steep challenges to reach renewable energy goals
March 3, 2021 — President Joe Biden wants to change the way the U.S. uses energy by expanding renewables, but he will need to navigate a host of challenges — including the coronavirus pandemic and restoring hundreds of thousands of lost jobs — to get it done.
The wind and solar industries have managed to grow despite a less-than-supportive Trump administration, which favored fossil fuels such as coal. They have a new ally in the White House in Biden, who has set a goal of 100% renewable energy in the power sector by 2035. Now comes the hard part — making it happen.
Disruption from the pandemic has cost the renewable energy industry, which relies heavily on labor, about 450,000 jobs. The pandemic has also made it more difficult to build wind and solar infrastructure and has redirected federal resources away from the energy sector. There’s the additional challenge of getting pro-environment legislation through a deeply divided U.S. Senate where Democrats hold the narrowest margin possible and have some key members in fossil fuel states.
To reach Biden’s 100% renewable energy goal will require a massive buildout of grid infrastructure to get energy from the windy plains or offshore wind farms over long distances to cities where electricity is needed. About a sixth of today’s U.S. electricity generation is from renewable sources, the U.S. Energy Information Administration has said.
Undersea cable survey marks milestone in Maine’s offshore wind quest
March 2, 2021 — Three marine vessels that study the makeup and geology of seabeds are scheduled to arrive in Maine over the next week or so to survey the proposed route of an underwater cable that will link a floating, offshore wind turbine near Monhegan Island with the mainland power grid in East Boothbay.
The vessels are scheduled to be on site next Monday through April 4, weather permitting. They are planning to conduct three passes along the 23-mile route, as well as study the area where the turbine will be anchored in state waters south of the island.
The vessels also will perform an assessment around Mack Point in Searsport, where the floating, concrete platform that supports the turbine could be fabricated.
Ørsted announces another delay to Skipjack Wind Farm near Ocean City
March 1, 2021 — A proposed offshore wind farm off the coast of Ocean City has been delayed again, according a statement from the company planning the project.
Ørsted announced Friday its expected completion date for its Skipjack Wind Farm has been delayed to sometime in mid-2026. Friday’s announcement was the second delay by Ørsted is the last two years.
The Skipjack Wind Farm is one of two offshore wind farms currently in development. Both wind farms are slated to sit at least 10 miles from the Ocean City beach, with the Skipjack project residing further north toward the Delaware state line than the MarWin Wind Farm being planned by U.S. Wind.
Ørsted officials informed state regulators with the Maryland Public Service Commission about the delay on Thursday, but didn’t specify what’s causing the postponement.
Maine joins national offshore wind research consortium
March 1, 2021 — Maine has joined the National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium, a public-private partnership that could expand the state’s access to research and resources for its offshore wind program.
“Through the consortium, Maine has the opportunity to learn and advance technologies alongside a variety of others to guide offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine,” Dan Burgess, director of the Governor’s Energy Office, said in a news release Thursday. “Access to more knowledge, data and research from around the country will inform our approach to offshore wind and benefit Maine’s people, communities and economy.”
Maine’s membership in the consortium includes the Governor’s Energy Office and the University of Maine, a center of technology and innovation in floating offshore wind. The nonprofit consortium, established in 2018, works to advance offshore wind technology in the United States through cost-effective and responsible development to maximize economic benefits.
On U.S. East Coast, Has Offshore Wind’s Moment Finally Arrived?
February 24, 2021 — About 60 miles east of New York’s Montauk Point, a 128,000-acre expanse of the Atlantic Ocean is expected to produce enough electricity to power around 850,000 homes when it’s populated with wind turbines and connected to the onshore grid in the next few years.
Fifteen miles off Atlantic City, New Jersey, another windy swath of ocean is due to start generating enough power for some 500,000 homes when a forest of 850-foot-high turbines start turning there in 2024.
And off the Virginia coast some 200 miles to the south, a utility-led offshore wind project is scheduled to produce carbon-free power equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road when it is complete in 2026.
The fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry is finally poised to become a commercial reality off the northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts within the next five years, thanks to robust commitments to buy its power from seven coastal states, new support from the Biden administration, and billions of dollars in investment by an industry that sees a huge market for electric power in Eastern states.
New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland have together committed, through legislation or executive action, to buying about 30,000 megawatts (MW) of offshore electricity by 2035 — enough to power roughly 20 million homes, according to the American Clean Power Association (ACPA), which advocates for renewable energy. Projects totaling 11,000 MW have been awarded so far.
Offshore Wind Developer Signs Job Training Agreement with 6 NJ Labor Unions
February 24, 2021 — One of the prospective developers of offshore wind farms miles from the New Jersey coast said it would train members of local labor unions to aid in the construction of its clean energy project.
The agreement between the wind developer Atlantic Shores and the six unions in New Jersey was described as the first of its kind in the United States, where a nascent offshore wind industry is hopeful for groundbreakings in the next few years of the Biden administration.
The developer, which is a joint venture between two foreign energy companies Shell New Energies and EDF Renewables, would train the members of the New Jersey unions in order to have the workers construct what would be dozens of wind turbines between 10-20 miles off the shore between Atlantic City and Long Beach Island.
Joris Veldhoven, commercial director for Atlantic Shores, said in an interview Tuesday that the developer plans to begin training union members so they will be ready for a construction phase that hopefully begins in 2024. Atlantic Shores has yet to receive formal approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. That could come in June when the state will announce a second approval for an offshore wind farm. Another developer, Ørsted, won the first approval late in 2018.
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