Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine Pols Beg Biden to Protect Fisheries as Offshore Wind Power Advances

June 13, 2023 — As offshore wind power continues its inexorable advance in the Gulf of Maine, Gov. Janet Mills and Maine’s Congressional Delegation are pleading with the Biden Administration to protect the interests of Maine’s local fisheries.

In a letter sent Monday to Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Director Elizabeth Klein, Gov. Mills, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden submitted public comment to the federal agency concerning offshore wind development plans.

In the letter, Maine’s political leaders requested the avoidance of key lobstering areas for wind development, with a strong emphasis on minimizing conflicts between offshore wind projects and the fishing industry.

Their plea comes as a direct response to BOEM’s “Call for Information and Nominations” for potential commercial wind energy development in areas off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Read the full article at the Maine Wire

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. offshore wind proponents optimistic despite SouthCoast financing troubles

June 12, 2023 — A second Massachusetts wind farm developer has hit economic headwinds and decided to renege on its contracts. Could Rhode Island’s projects be next to fall?

State officials and offshore wind proponents say no.

Instead, they have brushed off the news that Massachusetts wind farm developer Southcoast Wind Energy LLC (formerly known as Mayflower Wind) wants to scrap its agreements to sell 1,200 megawatts of electricity to the Commonwealth amid rising project costs.

“It’s just part of the regular business cycle we’re dealing with,” said Patrick Crowley, a union organizer and co-chairman of Climate Jobs Rhode Island. “Construction projects are always trying to negotiate their contracts. It’s just part of the business.”

Indeed, the SouthCoast Wind farm – a joint venture by Shell and Spanish company Ocean Wind –  is hardly the only development project hurt by inflationary cost hikes and supply chain slowdowns. Another Massachusetts wind farm developer, Avangrid Renewables, ended its existing contracts with state utility companies for the Commonwealth Wind project in 2022 for similar cost concerns.

For SouthCoast, the payments from utility companies it negotiated in 2019 just don’t work anymore. A third-party analysis shows construction and operation costs have spiked more than 20%, according to Southcoast Wind Energy CEO Francis Slingsby.

“The existing PPAs will not attract the financing necessary to construct the Clean Energy Resource and Project because they are low-priced, have no indexation and thus offer no way to overcome the significant and unforeseen economic challenges,” Slingsby wrote in June 2 testimony to Rhode Island regulators.

Both Southcoast and Avangrid plan to rebid for new power purchase agreements in Massachusetts in the hopes of getting more money from the utility companies.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

MASSACHUSETTS: First Major U.S. Wind Farm Construction Begins Off Massachusetts—And More Are Coming

June 10, 2023 — Construction of the initial turbines in the first major U.S. offshore wind farm began this week south of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, following a years-long legal battle and a series of federal slow-downs over the controversial project—part of the Biden Administration’s push for green energy and the first in a wall of offshore wind projects off the East Coast.

Construction began on the foundation of the first of 62 nearly 850-foot-tall turbines as part of the Vineyard Wind I project, the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, roughly 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, the company announced Wednesday.

Vineyard Wind, which was first approved for a nearly 167,000-acre federal lease site from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in 2015, is one of nine proposed offshore wind farms south of Massachusetts and Rhode Island leased through the federal government (totaling roughly 742,000 acres)—part of President Joe Biden’s goal of creating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and an instrumental part of his ambitious goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

NEW YORK: NY offshore wind developers also seek price relief

June 8, 2023 — MAJOR OFFSHORE wind developers in New York say their projects may no longer be financially viable unless regulators amend their power purchase agreements to include adjustments for inflation and interconnection costs.

In petitions filed with state regulators on Wednesday, the New York wind farm operators followed the same script as developers in Massachusetts, who say their projects have been overwhelmed by inflation, rising interest rates, supply chain disruption, and the war in Ukraine.

The Massachusetts developers initially sought to modify their existing power purchase agreements, but when that plea fell on deaf ears at the Department of Public Utilities they moved to terminate the agreements they signed last year and rebid the projects at higher prices in a procurement coming in 2024.

In New York, the developers are asking state regulators to agree to price adjustments in the existing contracts. They point out that New York has approved including similar price adjustments as part of the state’s third offshore wind procurement process, and now should retroactively apply them to contracts approved in the first two procurements.

Read the full article at Common Wealth

NEW JERSEY: Offshore wind encounters turbulence over NJ

June 8, 2023 — The offshore wind industry’s troubles continue to pile up — not only in New Jersey but in neighboring states along the Eastern Seaboard.

On Wednesday, New Jersey Board of Public Utilities President Joseph Fiordaliso, perhaps one of the sector’s biggest advocates, let loose with an uncharacteristic rant at a developer in the emerging industry. Although he did not name the company, it was seen as a reference to Ørsted, which owns and is developing New Jersey’s initial offshore wind project.

Fiordaliso expressed frustration over repeated delays in moving forward with the project. “Your delays are intolerable,’’ he said. As was his custom, he had an offshore wind logo pinned on his suit.

“We cannot afford any more delays,’’ Fiordaliso said, adding there are no delays in the pace of climate change. “Some of the things that are being delayed are indefensible.’’

The agency, which is overseeing the state’s offshore wind efforts, also deferred action on a related issue that Brian Lipman, director of the Division of Rate Counsel, urged the regulators to delay. In a letter to the agency, Lipman said his office had no opportunity to assess the potential impact of a proposal to make changes in how the state connects electricity generated by the wind farms to the power grid.

Read the full article at New Jersey Spotlight News

MASSACHUSETTS: Turbine blades arrive in New Bedford as second heavy load carrier navigates harbor

June 7, 2023 –A few hours after the UHL Felicity departed the Port of New Bedford to head back to Portugal, another blue-hulled heavy load carrier, RollDock Sky, eased through the hurricane barrier Tuesday morning, bringing more wind turbine parts (this time, blades) into port.

The foreign-flagged 460-foot vessel departed the Netherlands in May, and then stopped in Gaspe, Canada, to retrieve blades from General Electric’s manufacturing facility before coming to New Bedford.

A GE spokesperson said the vessel was carrying six blades. The 62-turbine project, with three bladers per tower, will require 186 in total. The carrier’s deck equipment obfuscated the 351-foot blades a bit, but four were visible atop the ship.

The movement of new parts comes a few days after the local longshoremen’s union reached a contract with Vineyard Wind. The union previously shut down work at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal — the project’s staging site — in protest of Vineyard Wind’s hiring practices. The strike started one day after the first turbine components arrived, and ended late last week.

Prior to the contract, 12 local longshoremen members had part-time positions for Vineyard Wind out of more than 300 union workers, most of which came from the Boston area. The new contract guarantees a 40-hour week for some workers and hires additional part-time longshoremen, The Light reported.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

 

NEW YORK: Trying to explain the whys of Long Island wind farms

June 5, 2023 — A group of experts attempted to explain to a large crowd at Long Beach’s City Hall last Wednesday the need for a plan by New York State to construct a wind farm off Long Island’s South Shore.

The plan has generated considerable controversy in Long Beach and Oceanside, over health issues generated by cables stretching from the wind turbines to the E.F. Barrett Power Plant in Island Park.

But the experts were not always successful.

The presentation was organized by the Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE) led by its executive director, Adrienne Esposito.

Topics included the basics of the Offshore Wind project, the dangers of electromagnetic fields (EMFs), how the project will affect marine life and the benefit for local labor and jobs.

Read the full article at LIHerald.com

Lawsuit claiming to save whales by delaying Vineyard Wind project dismissed. Now what?

May 31, 2023 — A lawsuit filed with hopes of stopping construction of Vineyard Wind 1, expected to begin installing turbines soon in waters about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, was recently dismissed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Brought to court in August 2021 by Nantucket Residents Against Turbines – which also goes by ACKRATS – the suit was filed primarily out of concern for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, as well as other marine animals and the marine ecosystem, in the offshore wind development area designated in federal waters on the outer continental shelf. The Nantucket residents also cited concern about impacts on Nantucket’s historic landmark status.

Touted as the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind, under development by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is on track to generate 800-megawatts of electricity annually, powering more than 400,000 homes, starting later this year. Plans call for 62 General Electric Haliade-X turbines, spaced 1 nautical mile apart.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Port users: Here’s how to get notified of offshore wind vessel transits in New Bedford

May 31, 2023 — Major ships carrying wind turbine parts from Canada and Europe will arrive with great frequency in the Port of New Bedford this summer — activity that will necessitate temporary closures and interruptions in the harbor and hurricane barrier. To keep port users apprised, the New Bedford Port Authority launched a text notification system to alert commercial and recreational operators of upcoming offshore wind vessel transits.

“Now that we have experienced the first large scale offshore wind vessel entering the harbor, and with the increase in regularity of offshore wind vessel activity, we want to be able to notify our port users on the frequency and size of these vessels to minimize any disruptions or delay,” said Gordon Carr, executive director of the Port Authority, in an email Friday.

Offshore construction and installation for the Vineyard Wind project off of Martha’s Vineyard will pick up speed this summer, which means many heavy-load carriers and barges will be coming in and out of the port with giant offshore wind towers, nacelles and blades.

Read the full article at the New Bedford Light