Saving Seafood

Virginia is all-in on offshore wind but Dominion’s decision raises questions about cost, competence

November 4, 2019 — It’s not every day that the names of a major utility and the nation’s largest grassroots environmental organization share space on a banner. But at the American Wind Energy Association’s annual offshore wind conference earlier this month in Boston, the logos of the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club and Dominion Energy bookended those of half a dozen state agencies, educational institutions and business development organizations on a banner proclaiming Virginia’s commitment to offshore wind.

The banner anchored a large corner booth showcasing the strengths Virginia brings to the growing industry. Broad stakeholder support is one advantage; unlike Massachusetts, Virginia has seen little opposition to its plans for developing the 112,799-acre offshore wind energy area 27 miles out from Virginia Beach.

This broad stakeholder support is the product of more than a decade of work on the part of researchers, environmental organizations, the business community and elected leaders from both parties.

For the Sierra Club and Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration, offshore wind offers carbon-free, renewable energy and a way to position the Virginia as a leader in the green economy. For the Port of Virginia and Virginia Beach Economic Development, it brings new business opportunities. For Old Dominion University and Virginia Tidewater Community College, it’s a chance to train young people and participate in ground-breaking research in ocean science and engineering. And for Dominion Energy, it offers a new avenue for profit and a way to rebrand itself as a clean energy company without having to shed its core investments in fracked gas.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

Massachusetts picks lowest-price offshore wind option

October 31, 2019 — The Baker Administration announced Mayflower Wind as the winner of the state’s second offshore wind farm procurement, praising a proposal that the company said offered the lowest price and the least onshore investment of its three major offerings.

Few details about the price or the onshore investment were revealed, but Mayflower said in its original bid that the price would be “the lowest cost offshore wind energy ever in the US.” Mayflower is a joint venture of Shell New Energies and EDP Renewables.

The choice of the lowest-cost option is controversial because it touches on a sensitive policy issue. Officials on the South Coast have been pressing the Baker administration to focus more on onshore investment so that the state could begin to supply more and more of the supply chain for wind farms springing up along the coast. Gov. Charlie Baker is eager to see onshore industry develop, but he is wary of doing so at the cost of higher prices for power, which negatively affects customers and businesses across the state.

Mayflower laid out three options for a wind farm with a capacity of 804 megawatts. The first proposal, called “low cost energy,” offered the lowest price and some onshore investment. The second proposal, called “infrastructure and innovation,” offered a slightly higher price but promised more investment onshore. The third option, called “Massachusetts manufacturing,” offered the highest price but more onshore investment.

Read the full story at Commonwealth Magazine

Sign up for Mid-Atlantic Offshore Wind Updates

October 31, 2019 — The following was released by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

U.S. offshore wind energy development is moving at a fast pace. The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council has created a new offshore wind updates email list to distribute updates on offshore wind energy developments that may affect Mid-Atlantic Council-managed fisheries.

These email updates will be sent about once per month and will contain relevant updates from the previous month; however, the Council makes no guarantees that they will contain the most current information or all potentially relevant updates.

To sign up for this list, go to http://www.mafmc.org/email-list, enter your email address and check the box for “Offshore Wind Updates.” If you are already subscribed to any other Council email lists, this will not affect your other subscriptions.

The first offshore wind update for October 31, 2019 is included below. If you do not sign up for the offshore wind updates list at the link above, you will not receive future updates on this topic.

Updates for October 31, 2019

1. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking public comments on draft guidelines for lighting and marking of structures supporting renewable energy projects, including offshore wind projects. More information is available here.

2. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) finalized contracts with Equinor Wind US LLC for the Empire Wind project in the New York Bight and with Sunrise Wind LLC (a joint venture of Ørsted A/S and Eversource Energy) for the Sunrise Wind project south of Rhode Island.

  • Click here for the Fisheries Mitigation Plan for the Empire Wind Project.
  • Click here for the Fisheries Mitigation Plan for the Sunrise Wind Project.

3. NYSERDA published a report titled Launching New York’s Offshore Wind Industry: Phase 1.

4. Equinor Wind created a brochure describing feedback they have received from the fishing industry to date on the layout of offshore wind turbine arrays for their Empire and Boardwalk Wind projects off New York/northern New Jersey.

5. A graduate student at the University of Rhode Island is conducting an online survey of members of the commercial fishing industry on their preferences for offshore wind farm layouts. Click here to take the survey.

More Information

For information on specific projects, please see the individual developer webpages linked at: http://www.mafmc.org/northeast-offshore-wind.

All recent notices to mariners (e.g., notices of survey activities) received by the Council are posted at: http://www.mafmc.org/offshore-wind-notices.

If you wish to suggest an item for inclusion in the next month’s update, please email wind@mafmc.org.

Wind updates from the New England Fishery Management Council are included in their periodic news roundups. To sign up for New England Fishery Management Council updates, please email Janice Plante at jplante@nefmc.org.

Vineyard Wind Appoints Fisheries Liaison For CT

October 29, 2019 — Offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind has appointed Caela Howard its fisheries liaison for Connecticut.

Howard has spent the last decade working closely with fisheries in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and in this role, she will serve as the primary point of contact for fishing industry representatives in Connecticut. She will report to the company’s lead fisheries liaison, Crista Bank.

“Vineyard Wind is excited to welcome Caela Howard as our first Connecticut fisheries liaison,” states Lars Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind. “Caela brings extensive experience working closely with fishermen across southern New England, and we look forward to the insight she will provide as we continue building strong relationships with fishing communities throughout the region.”

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

Offshore wind farms could “destroy” Delaware’s coastal tourism, Caesar Rodney Institute claims

October 28, 2019 — The Caesar Rodney Institute’s Center for Energy Competitiveness has petitioned Governor John Carney to take action, arguing that a wind farm off the coast of Delaware would “destroy” the state’s coastal tourism.

“In a few years the world’s largest industrial wind turbines will fill the horizon from Rehoboth Beach to Fenwick Island at six times the height of typical cell phone towers,” the institute wrote in a letter sent to the Governor.

“My research is showing offshore wind projects could destroy our beach economy,” Dave Stevenson, Director for the Center for Energy Competitiveness with the Caesar Rodney explained. “Tourists visit Eastern Sussex for the ocean, and a pristine view to the horizon is critical to that beach enjoyment.”

Ørsted, an energy company based in Denmark, is the company pushing the project and partnering with Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), who’s allowing the project to move forward after the company promised to invest as much as $18 million in Fenwick Island State Park.

Read the full story at WGMD

‘A Whole New Industry’: N.H. To Work With Neighboring States On Offshore Wind in Gulf of Maine

October 25, 2019 — New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts will work together on large-scale offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine. Stakeholders from the three states met today in Manchester talk about the possibilities and obstacles for that new industry.

The event was hosted by the Environmental Business Council of New England at the state headquarters of Eversource, which is developing several large offshore wind projects elsewhere in the Northeast.

Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the state’s Department of Business and Economic Affairs, said at the meeting that he thinks Northern New England could add tens of thousands of jobs building these offshore turbine farms, and the transmission infrastructure to bring their power on-shore.

“This is not just a project. This is not just an individual, ‘we’re going to find a site and put a couple of turbines up,’” Caswell says. “This is the establishment of, really, a whole new industry.”

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

Emails show bond between NOAA, fishermen against project

October 25, 2019 — Meghan Lapp was steamed. It was late February, and Rhode Island regulators had just finalized a mitigation plan intended to blunt an offshore wind project’s economic impact on local fishermen. Lapp, who handles government relations at a Rhode Island fishing company, viewed the plan as a farce.

“What happened last night in R.I. was an absolute roll over the fishing industry,” she wrote to two staffers at NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency that regulates commercial fishing.

State regulators had taken little input from fishermen on the plan, she wrote. What input they did receive did not sway them. A calamari processor told Rhode Island officials his biggest customer would likely have to source squid from China if the 84-turbine project proposed by Vineyard Wind in federal waters off Massachusetts was allowed to proceed.

Lapp’s company, Seafreeze Ltd., fishes for squid in the area and has taken a lead role in opposing the project.

“We are losing on every angle,” Lapp wrote federal officials. She later added, “I appreciate all the work you guys are doing on the offshore wind issue, and I thought particularly with regards to the squid industry that this was important to share.”

Doug Christel, a fishing policy analyst at NOAA, responded a week later. The federal agency had not been closely tracking the state process but had discussed Lapp’s concerns, he said.

“Similar to some of your comments, we feel the DEIS [draft environmental impact statement] underestimates landings from within the WDA,” he wrote, referring to the wind development area leased by Vineyard Wind from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at E&E News

Two Months Later, Vineyard Wind’s Delay Still Clouds US Offshore Picture

October 24, 2019 — Two months after the U.S. government abruptly delayed Vineyard Wind’s 800-megawatt offshore wind project, the industry is still looking for answers.

It’s not exactly clear when Vineyard will get its final go-ahead, let alone what effect the government’s unexpected “cumulative impacts analysis” will have on the pathbreaking $2.8 billion project or the broader American offshore wind market.

If anything, the timeline for a resolution has slipped. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management initially said it anticipated completing Vineyard’s supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) in late 2019 or early 2020, delaying the project by about six months. But BOEM Acting Director Walter Cruickshank said this week that the Interior Department agency now expects to have the supplemental draft EIS “out for public comment early next year.”

Read the full story at Green Tech Media

EnBW North America Appoints Fisheries Liaison

October 23, 2019 — Highlighting the critical connection between early and effective engagement with the fishing industry and successful offshore wind development, EnBW North America today has welcomed long-time fishing advocate Beth Casoni as the company’s fisheries liaison. The company has also announced its new membership in the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance’s (RODA) joint industry task force, devoted to addressing issues of mutual interest to commercial fisheries and offshore wind.

While federal Bureau of Offshore Energy Management (BOEM) rules require offshore wind area leaseholders to employ a fisheries liaison, EnBW North America says it made the decision to retain Casoni before obtaining site control in order to fully engage with the fishing community before project design and development. The company’s immediate attention is on the New York Bight – an area off the coasts of New York and New Jersey, where BOEM is expected to auction wind lease areas in late 2020.

Casoni, a Marshfield, Mass., resident, has worked at the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association since 2007 and has served as its executive director since 2014. Her experience includes serving on the Massachusetts Ocean Advisory Commission, which contributed to the development of the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan. She serves also on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team and several fisheries and seafood marketing boards, including the New England Marine Fisheries Herring and Habitat Advisory Panel and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Herring Advisory Panel. A fishing community native whose family includes commercial fishermen, Casoni is also a former reserve intermittent police officer with the Cohasset (Massachusetts) Police Department.

Read the full story at North American Wind Power

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen’s association director takes wind farm job

October 23, 2019 — Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, has joined EnBw North America as its fisheries liaison. EnBw North America is a subsidiary of EnBw AG, a German utility and wind farm company.

EnBw North America, which has offices in Boston and Jersey City, N.J., was runner-up for federal lease areas off Massachusetts that went out to bid Dec. 18, 2018, according to Bill White, managing director of EnBw North America. The winners of those bids were Equinor Wind, Mayflower Wind Energy, and Vineyard Wind. With its successful bid, Vineyard Wind was allotted an ocean area off Massachusetts where it can potentially build a second wind farm.

EnBw North America remains in the game despite the recent loss, and is working to establish a strong presence in the commercial fishing community with Casoni.

“I think the world of her,” White said of Casoni. “She’s got an enormous amount of expertise and knowledge.”

Read the full story at the MV Times