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NEW YORK: Five State Agencies Sign On to Wind Farm Plan

October 16, 2020 — The joint proposal that the developers of the South Fork Wind farm filed with the New York State Public Service Commission last month in support of their application for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need under Article VII of the Public Service Law received prominent backing last week with the addition of five state agencies.

The Department of Public Service, the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Department of Transportation, the Department of State, and the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation signed the joint proposal, a list of conditions on which stakeholders have reached consensus over 10 months of negotiations. Stakeholders include East Hampton Town and the town trustees, and groups and individuals advocating for and against the wind farm.

The Department of Public Service is the staff of the Public Service Commission. Under the Public Service Law, the commission “shall designate such members of its staff as may be desirable to represent the public interest in such proceedings.” As such, it is an interested party in the Article VII proceeding.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star

BOEM needs staffing help with offshore wind permitting regardless of election results, experts say

October 16, 2020 — BOEM is reviewing the Construction and Operation Plans (COP) for a number of projects in the Atlantic, which are contingent on the agency issuing its first Environmental Impact Statement for a large-scale offshore wind project in federal waters.

“I think there is a recognition that BOEM doesn’t have all the resources to put out six or seven COPs at one time,” particularly in the same wind energy areas, Geri Edens, counsel for Vineyard Wind, said on the panel.

But while staggering the permitting of the rest of the projects might make sense for BOEM, it is “not necessarily ideal for the industry, because everyone’s been waiting for a while now to get these things forward,” she said.

BOEM had pushed back its review of Vineyard Wind’s Massachusetts construction plan for 1.5 years, deciding that permitting for offshore wind needed to be done in a more holistic capacity, including considerations for further expansion of the resource.

The delay has led other projects to revise their timelines, such as the 120 MW Skipjack Offshore Energy wind farm, which originally sought commercial operation as early as November 2022.

The bandwidth of BOEM will be stretched in January 2021 regardless of how the election turns out, experts say.

According to the Permitting Dashboard for Federal Infrastructure Projects produced by DOI and other agencies, federal permitting applications for Vineyard Wind and Deepwater Wind’s South Fork Wind Farm are both in progress. BOEM has received COPs for 10 offshore wind projects to date.

Read the full story at Utility Drive

Offshore wind project completes final step, ready to deliver renewable energy to Virginians

October 15, 2020 — Dominion Energy announced Wednesday that the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) pilot project has completed the final stage of testing and is ready to enter commercial service providing clean, renewable energy to Virginians.

“This is a monumental day for the Commonwealth and the burgeoning offshore wind industry in America as CVOW is ready to deliver clean, renewable energy to our Virginia customers,” said Joshua Bennett, Dominion Energy vice president of offshore wind.

“Our team has worked diligently with key stakeholders and regulators while safely navigating through the coronavirus pandemic to complete this vitally important project that is a key step to reducing carbon emissions,” Bennett continued.

The next step for the two turbine, 12-megawatt project is submitting final documentation to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to complete its technical review — which is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

Read the full story at WAVY

New Tools Available to Help the Public to Better Understand Fishing Impacts Associated with Offshore Wind Development

October 15, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries has developed new tools and analyses that will help the public better understand fishing impacts associated with offshore wind development.

To help analyze how fishing operations may be impacted by offshore wind energy projects, NOAA Fisheries combined vessel logbook and dealer report data from 2008-2018 compared to current offshore wind energy project areas. We identified where and when fishing occurred relative to these areas and estimated landings and fishing revenue associated with each project area.

Based on this process, NOAA Fisheries developed reports of potential socioeconomic impacts from each offshore wind project area based on historic data.  These reports include information on the amount of primary species landed, revenue associated with landings, gear types used, and communities affected by each offshore wind development project area.  This will help estimate the potential impacts of such development on managed fisheries and associated fishing communities.

The public can access and download data used to generate these reports using a web-based tool developed by NOAA Fisheries. This tool allows users to access summary data based on species, gear, port, and state.  Users can also conduct a customized query by filtering the data for several fields, including year, wind energy area, species, or fishery management plan.

Both the socioeconomic impact reports and data query tool are now available online.  All data included in reports or available through the new web-based query tool have been aggregated, as necessary, to protect data confidentiality.

Read the full release here

MASSACHUSETTS: Dana Rebeiro hired as community liaison by Vineyard Wind

October 14, 2020 — Vineyard Wind announced the hiring of former New Bedford City Councilor Dana Rebeiro as Community Liaison with a particular focus on New Bedford, the South Coast and Cape, according to a news release from Vineyard Wind.

Her hiring comes at a time when the company is gearing up to bring both clean, renewable energy and job opportunities to the area, the release said.

“We’re pleased to bring Dana on board at this critical juncture for our first project,” said Chief Development Officer Rachel Pachter in the news release. “Vineyard Wind 1 is going to need a well-trained and diverse workforce to meet the needs of this growing industry as well as frequent opportunities to engage with the company. Dana’s experience will be a tremendous asset as we work to ensure that local communities receive the greatest possible benefit when it comes to jobs and other opportunities and are well informed as the project moves forward.”

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Fishing industry group casts doubt on offshore wind’s job creation promises

October 12, 2020 — While offshore wind developers are promising tens of thousands of U.S. jobs from wind farm development along the East Coast over the next decade, the commercial fishing industry is sowing doubt about the projections.

An economic analysis commissioned by the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, a fishing industry coalition, concludes that “a surprisingly low” number of new positions will be permanent, and that the bulk of jobs will be created overseas.

“The claim that the huge investments on offshore wind would provide significant job and economic benefits in the U.S. has been grossly inflated,” wrote the report’s author, Janet Liang, an economist with Georgetown Economic Services, a consulting firm.

Wind industry representatives are not convinced by the findings, however. So long as Eastern Seaboard states can provide sufficient training to help businesses and workers capitalize on wind industry opportunities, the economic benefit is bound to be substantial, said Liz Burdock, chief executive and president of the Business Network for Offshore Wind.

Read the full story at the Energy News Network

European developers build out dominance in US offshore wind race

October 8, 2020 — Utilities and oil majors from Europe are slicing up the Eastern Seaboard when it comes to the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind industry, with fewer domestic-owned developers so far putting money into a sector that is expected to balloon over the coming decade.

BP PLC became the latest company to enter the fray in September, when it bought into two offshore wind developments owned by Norway’s Equinor ASA, the Beacon Wind and Empire Wind projects, which between them have development potential of 4,400 MW, including an 816-MW state contract already awarded for Empire Wind. The joint venture between the two oil and gas firms follows a host of deals and leasing rounds that have seen the major players of Europe’s own offshore boom take the lead in the sector’s next big market.

Denmark’s Ørsted A/S, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and the BP-Equinor joint venture now own just over 11,600 MW of planned projects along the coast, while Dominion Energy Inc. and Eversource Energy — the next two top owners — are sitting on a combined 4,500 MW of projects, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis.

Read the full story at S&P Global

New Hampshire offshore wind panel looks to catch up, collaborate with its neighbors

October 6, 2020 — Offshore wind advocates in New Hampshire are hopeful that a new commission can help the state catch up with its neighbors in planning for the industry.

With federal permitting on hold and a regional task force tabled due to the pandemic, New Hampshire has a window to gain ground on states farther along with their offshore wind workforce and infrastructure efforts.

“We have a lot of catch-up to do,” the panel’s chair, state Sen. David Watters, said at its first virtual meeting Sept. 21, “and getting this commission passed and then getting going will really help us be in a better shape to do what needs to be done when the Gulf of Maine task force starts again.”

The 24-member commission was formed as part of an omnibus bill (HB1245) signed by Gov. Chris Sununu in July. It brings together lawmakers, clean energy advocates, state officials, marine industry stakeholders and researchers to discuss concerns and opportunities for offshore wind in New Hampshire.

Read the full story at Energy News Network

Federal grant for Maine offshore wind

October 6, 2020 — Maine is getting a $2.16 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to map out plans for an offshore wind energy industry, and join other Northeast states already promoting their own vast hopes for turbine arrays.

“Unleashing American innovation is critical to our global competitiveness,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said in announcing the grant Oct. 1. “This project will allow Maine to capitalize on its technical leadership in the wind power sector to diversify and grow the state’s economy and make it more resilient.”

The EDA grant to the Maine Governor’s Energy Office will be matched with $267,624 in state funds and $112,457 in local funds, according to federal officials.

The money will be used to “create a roadmap for establishing a floating offshore wind power industry by examining manufacturing processes, supply chains, port facilities, transportation systems, shipbuilding opportunities, ecosystem relationships, workforce development plans, power interconnections, exports, and economic impacts,” according to Commerce Department official Dana Gartzke.

Maine has followed twists and turns in developing offshore wind. Deeper waters of the Gulf of Maine would require the use of floating turbines, unlike the fixed foundations planned for big projects on the outer continental shelf off southern New England.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

NEW YORK: Trustees on Board With Offshore Wind Plan

October 2, 2020 — The East Hampton Town Trustees unanimously approved signing on to the joint proposal submitted two weeks ago by Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind and Eversource Energy to the New York State Public Service Commission in support of the proposed South Fork Wind farm, to be situated approximate-ly 35 miles off Montauk Point.

Before the vote during their virtual meeting on Monday, the trustees, in consultation with outside counsel retained for navigating their role in the wind farm proposal, emphasized that the approval they were codifying supports “only those provisions that address the public need for the project and the construction, operation, maintenance, repair, and decommissioning of those portions of the project that are proposed to be located within” trustee jurisdiction, specifically the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott, where the developers intend to land the wind farm’s export cable.

By signing on to the joint proposal, which details elements of the project from construction to its decommissioning 25 years later, the trustees are not addressing issues such as the wind farm’s impact on utility rates, for example, said Daniel Spitzer of Hodgson Russ L.L.C., counsel to the trustees. “You’re not offering an opinion that New York State needs this particular wind farm,” he said. That determination, rather, is the role of the Public Service Commission, which in order for the project to proceed must issue a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need under Article VII of the Public Service Law.

Read the full story at The East Hampton Star