Saving Seafood

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. Coastal Agency Approves New England Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard

October 16, 2023 — Rhode Island coastal regulators gave the green light last week to another offshore wind project proposed for southern New England’s waters but without a key stakeholder in the room: the state’s fishing industry.

The Coastal Resources Management Council ruled by unanimous vote the 804-megawatt (MW) New England Wind project developed by Connecticut-based energy company Avengrid was consistent with federal and state regulations so long as it agreed to certain stipulations provided by agency staff. Final approval of the New England Wind project — formerly Vineyard Wind South — is left up to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The project would install 84 turbines in a lease area 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, and deliver electricity via a buried export cable that would make landfall in Hyannis, Mass. Except for a small portion of the export cable, the project is located entirely outside of Rhode Island state waters.

It is the first wind project to be considered by CRMC’s executive body without input from the Fisherman’s Advisory Board (FAB). The board, a stakeholder group staffed by recreational and commercial fisherman and representatives from other related marine industries, resigned in protest in August, alleging state regulators were ignoring their own regulations to approve offshore wind projects that would be harmful to the environment and the fishing industry.

CRMC executive director Jeff Willis said at last Tuesday’s meeting that FAB’s resignations would have no impact on the approval process for New England Wind, and that the agency has continued to reach out to the members of the board and ask for their participation.

Read the full article at EcoRi News

NEW JERSEY: Orsted puts up $100M guarantee that it will build New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm by 2025

October 15, 2023 — The Danish wind energy company Orsted has put up a $100 million guarantee that it will build New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm.

But it will lose that money if the project is not operating by Dec. 2025 — a year after the deadline approved by state utility regulators.

New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved an agreement Wednesday with Orsted under which the company would forfeit the money if the project is not up and running within 12 months of a series of deadlines previously ordered by the board.

Those deadlines call for the project to reach commercial operation in stages by May 1, Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2024. But it would forfeit the guarantee money if the project is not operational by December 2025.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

New York rejects wind developers’ call for higher power prices

October 15, 2023 — New York State power regulators denied petitions by offshore wind developers to charge customers billions of dollars more in future energy sales, a setback that could threaten the viability of four projects and the state’s ambitions for renewable energy sources.

In announcing the denial Thursday, the New York State Public Service Commission said it “opted to preserve the robust competitive bidding process that provides critically needed renewable energy resources to New York in the fairest and most cost-effective manner that protects consumers.”

“The commission has repeatedly stated that competition in the procurement process is necessary to protect ratepayers and provides the soundest approach to mobilize the industry to achieve our critical State goals dependably and cost-effectively, and we do so again through today’s action,” said commission chair Rory M. Christian.

In its ruling the commission also turned down price increases for 86 land-based renewable energy projects. Granting the requests “outside the competitive procurement process would have resulted in as high as 6.7 percent increases for residential customers and as high as 10.5 percent for commercial or industrial customers,” according to the commission.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW YORK: New York rejects bid to renegotiate offshore wind contracts

October 15, 2023 — NEW YORK OFFICIALS followed the lead of regulators in Massachusetts on Thursday, rejecting bids by four offshore wind developers to renegotiate the prices they were awarded in previously approved contracts because of sharply rising and unexpected costs.

The decision means the developers will have to either stand by the terms of their current contracts — which they say are unable to do because the prices are no longer sufficient to obtain financing — or cancel the agreements, pay termination fees, and possibly rebid their projects in future procurements.

The ruling by the Public Service Commission raises questions about whether New York will now be able to reach its 2030 goal of building a power grid with 70 percent of the electricity coming from renewable sources. But members of the commission unanimously held that granting huge prices increases to the developers in a non-competitive process would undermine the state’s regulatory framework.

“While we do not doubt that recent national and global events have affected electric generation developers, we are not confident that the relief proposed in the petitions would adequately protect ratepayers,” the commission said in its ruling. “As explained below, granting the requested relief would result in significant rate impacts unsupported by the discipline of competitive solicitation without providing commensurate assurance that the projects at issue would be developed in a timely and cost[1]effective fashion.”

Read the full at CommonWealth Magazine

MASSACHUSETTS: The First Vineyard Wind Turbine Rises Off Nantucket

October 14, 2023 — The first of Vineyard Wind’s 62 turbines has been assembled in the waters southwest of Nantucket.

These photos were taken today from Madaket Beach with 400mm and 600mm camera lenses, and the images are cropped to show the view of the turbine in the distance. This turbine will be one of the closest to Nantucket in Vineyard Wind’s lease area. While they will certainly be visible, Vineyard Wind’s turbines won’t appear this large to the naked eye.

The turbine components left the port of New Bedford in early September, squeezing through the city’s hurricane barrier behind a tugboat, and heading out to sea. The assembly was delayed due to weather conditions over the past month.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

RHODE ISLAND: Another major offshore wind project clears state hurdle in Rhode Island

October 12, 2023 — Another large offshore wind farm near the southern New England coast is moving forward after securing the support of Rhode Island coastal regulators.

The state Coastal Resources Management Council unanimously voted Tuesday to award what’s known as a consistency certification to New England Wind, a two-part project of up to 130 turbines being developed by energy giant Avangrid Renewables. The council agreed that the project, with certain conditions attached, is consistent with Rhode Island coastal policies.

Fishermen advisory board’s walkout means fewer questions for project

The vote came at the end of a meeting that was much shorter and less contentious than similar deliberations on previous offshore wind proposals that have come before the Rhode Island council.

That was due in large part to the mass resignation five weeks ago of all the members of a board that advises the council on fishing impacts in protest of what they described as a regulatory process tilted in favor of offshore wind developers. Without the input of the Fishermen’s Advisory Board, there were fewer questions put to the representatives of Avangrid about their 2,004-megawatt project.

Read the full article at the Providence Journal

CALIFRONIA: Bill Expediting California’s Offshore Wind Development Signed into Law

October 12, 2023 — California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed two new offshore wind bills into law on 7 October. Coming into effect on 1 January 2024, the Offshore Wind Expediting Act (bill SB 286) is set to shave five years off of the offshore wind permitting timeline, while under the California Offshore Wind Advancement Act (bill AB 3), relevant state commissions will develop a second-phase plan and strategy for seaport readiness.

The Offshore Wind Expediting Act aims to put the state’s offshore wind deployment on a fast track by speeding up the permitting process through the State Coastal Commission and State Lands Commission.

The legislation also mandates state agencies and key stakeholders to collaborate and develop a long-term plan to deploy offshore wind infrastructure off of the California coast.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

RHODE ISLAND: Anti-wind farm group sues CRMC over Revolution Wind OK

October 11, 2023 — Green Oceans, a Little Compton-based citizens group that fiercely opposes offshore wind farms, is in the midst of a civil lawsuit it has filed against the state Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), claiming the council violated the constitution, state regulations, and its own responsibilities when it approved the Revolution Wind farm in May.

The lawsuit, being heard in Newport Superior Court, asks the court to vacate the CRMC’s decision, which, in effect, declared that the wind farm conforms to the state’s Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP), provided that the developer, Revolution Wind LLC, takes some agreed-upon mitigating actions.

Attorneys for the CRMC fired back, stating that private citizens have no legal standing to bring such a suit, that Green Oceans has not suffered injury because of the CRMC action, that the complaint was filed past deadline, and that Green Oceans was taking the action without an attorney, which is not allowed.

The next scheduled action in the case will be a hearing on a motion to dismiss on Nov. 17 in Newport Superior Court.

The May vote by the CRMC was a fairly minor but necessary state-based approval and part of a long approval process that Revolution Wind LLC began more than two years ago. Final approval comes from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The developer proposes to build 65 wind turbines, two offshore substations, and miles of undersea cable on the Continental Shelf about 13 miles from Rhode Island, bringing 704 megawatts of clean electricity onshore. The project is part of a strong push by the federal and state administrations to replace energy from dirty fossil fuels with renewable energy.

The federal government released in July a final Environmental Impact Statement for Revolution Wind. That is nearly the last action that happens before final approval, which is given by BOEM, part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Read the full article at EastBayRI

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

 

As CT scrambles to save wind, developers step up off Jersey Shore

October 10, 2023 — As Avangrid and Orsted waffle on wind farms off the southern New England coast amid runaway costs, two more big developers are pushing ahead undeterred for a big installation off New Jersey — presumably at a price point that could raise the bar on what Connecticut and other states will have to pay to get the wheels turning on wind power.

Attentive Energy announced it would bid on a power purchase agreement from New Jersey for a new proposed wind farm, the same day Avangrid announced it would back out of Park City Wind. The project was second in the pipeline to generate carbon-free electricity for Connecticut from offshore winds, after Orsted’s Revolution Wind.

A subsidiary of France-based TotalEnergies, Attentive Energy is pairing with the Corio Generation affiliate of Macquarie Group based in Australia.  New Jersey kept the window open for bids from March through August, coinciding with a stretch in which some offshore wind developers elected to cut their losses amid high interest rates that are making it more expensive to finance projects with loans, and continuing problems with the array of suppliers needed for the projects.

Read the full article at ctpost