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Vineyard Wind’s Lights Still Visible As Promised Radar System Remains Inoperative

September 11, 2024 — Nearly a year after Vineyard Wind installed its first turbine off Nantucket, the lights atop the 800-foot towers – which the company promised would remain dark unless an aircraft was passing by – continue to blink incessantly on the horizon.

While the project remains suspended by the federal government following the July 13 blade failure that remains under investigation, Vineyard Wind has been allowed to resume some construction activities, and the lights atop the 24 turbines that have been installed to date have been an eyesore for many who enjoy Nantucket’s dark skies at night.

As part of Vineyard Wind’s mitigation agreement with the town of Nantucket – a document better known as the Good Neighbor Agreement that was signed back in 2020 – the company is required to install a so-called Aircraft Detection Lighting System or ADLS. This system will utilize radar to ensure the lights at the top of each turbine activate only when there is an aircraft close to the wind farm area.

Vineyard Wind initially pledged to have the system operational by Memorial Day weekend. After that deadline came and went, the company pledged in June that the ADLS would be up and running “within the next several weeks.” Now, nearly three months after that statement, there is still no definitive timeline for when the system will be active.

Read the full article at Nantucket Current

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island will ramp up on offshore wind as part of a massive project with Massachusetts

September 9, 2024 — Rhode Island is set to ramp up its supply of offshore wind power with the announcement Friday that the state is will procure 200 megawatts of capacity from a much larger project that would send most of its electricity to Massachusetts.

The 1,278-megawatt total project, known as SouthCoast Wind, would be the largest offshore wind farm to be built so far in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Rhode Island would take only a small portion of the project’s power capacity, with the vast majority – 1,078 megawatts – going to Massachusetts.

Read the full article at The Providence Journal

Mass. and Rhode Island pick 3 new wind projects, with less power than originally sought

September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.

While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.

Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”

When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.

Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.

“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”

Read the full article at wbur

MASSACHUSETTS: Mass. picks more offshore wind projects. All three will rely heavily on New Bedford.

September 9, 2024 — In what Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has dubbed the “Largest Offshore Wind Selection in New England History,” Massachusetts officials have made the state’s selections known relative to the latest round of offshore wind project bidding. Massachusetts’ total of 2,678 selected megawatts represents inclusion in three different wind farm projects, all of which are connected to the SouthCoast region: SouthCoast Wind, New England Wind 1, and Vineyard Wind 2.

“Through this procurement, offshore wind will power over 1.4 million Massachusetts homes and reduce the state’s carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking one million gas-powered cars off the road,” the Healey-Driscoll Administration wrote in a press release. “Collectively, these projects will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of economic activity.”

Read the full article at The Standard-Times

Federal report OKs Gulf of Maine for offshore wind leases

September 9, 2024 — The federal government is preparing to sell offshore wind power plots in the Gulf of Maine after determining that leasing the area would not harm the environment.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said that installing buoys and conducting surveys to assess leases across one million acres of ocean would have no significant environmental impact.

Read the full article at WSHU

US gives key OK for 15GW floating wind area in Gulf of Maine

September 6, 2024 — US regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has approved its environmental assessment (EA) for a giant floating wind area in the Gulf of Maine holding some 15GW of potential capacity.

The EA authorises developers to carry out site assessment activities such as installation of meteorological buoys and surveys, a key step allowing a lease sale to go forward. Any projects planned for the region following the lease sale will need to undergo a more thorough environmental impact statement (EIS).

Read the full article at Recharge News

MARYLAND: White House OKs Maryland wind energy project to be built about 10 miles off Ocean City

September 6, 2024 — Offshore wind energy is coming to Maryland, and with it, union jobs.The Biden administration on Thursday approved Baltimore-based US Wind’s project to build offshore wind turbines about 10 miles off the coast of Ocean City.

The offshore wind farm could generate over 2 gigawatts of wind energy and power over 718,000 homes, according to the Department of the Interior.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that the wind energy industry had been “struggling to gain a foothold” in the years before he came into office.

“From manufacturing and shipbuilding to port operations and construction, this industry will support tens of thousands of good-paying and union jobs, provide reliable clean power to homes and businesses, strengthen our power grid against outages, and help reduce pollution – all while protecting biodiversity and marine ecosystems,” the president said.

Read the full article at Capital Gazette

OREGON: 5 companies set to bid on Southern Oregon offshore wind leases

September 6, 2024 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management outlined how its Oct.15 auction will work in a final sale notice released Tuesday.

Five companies have qualified to participate in the auction, bringing offshore wind development experience from around the world.

Avangrid, which is owned by the Spanish electric utility Iberdrola, is the co-owner of the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts. That project was criticized recently after a blade detached from a turbine in mid-July, and truckloads of fiberglass debris washed up on shore, according to the Boston Globe.

Read the full article at OPB

Rough sailing toward Maryland’s offshore wind energy goals

September 5, 2024 — While neighboring states have begun construction on their offshore wind farms, Maryland has yet to install one turbine foundation, though its offshore wind energy goals are more ambitious.

In April 2023, Gov. Wes Moore signed the Promoting Offshore Wind Energy Resources Act, which set Maryland’s goal of 8.5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy generation by 2031—more than enough to meet the state’s residential power needs.

By comparison, New York – a leader in the renewable landscape with some of the most ambitious state clean energy goals – passed a law in 2019 mandating 9 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035. The Empire State just completed its first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in March: South Fork Wind, with 12 turbines that can generate about 132 megawatts of energy. Two more projects have been approved for construction – Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind – that together should produce 3 gigawatts.

Read the full article at The Center Square

NEW JERSEY: Another New Jersey offshore wind project runs into turbulence as Leading Light seeks pause

September 5, 2024 — Another offshore wind project in New Jersey is encountering turbulence.

Leading Light Wind is asking the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to give it a pause through late December on its plan to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Long Beach Island.

In a filing with the utilities board made in July but not posted on the board’s web site until Tuesday, the company said it has had difficulty securing a manufacturer for turbine blades for the project and is currently without a supplier.

It asked the board to pause the project through Dec. 20 while a new source of blades is sought.

Wes Jacobs, the project director and vice president of Offshore Wind Development at Invenergy — one of the project’s partners — said it is seeking to hit the pause button “in light of industry-wide shifts in market conditions.”

Read the full article at the Associated Press