Saving Seafood

Groups urge judge to freeze New England offshore wind project

April 25, 2024 — Rhode Island homeowners are leading calls for a federal judge to freeze construction of an offshore wind farm in New England, after the Biden administration reopened analysis of how the project could harm endangered whales and sea turtles.

Green Oceans and other advocacy groups urged the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to stop ongoing seabed construction of Revolution Wind to prevent further harm to several at-risk species, including the North Atlantic right whale and loggerhead sea turtle.

“Construction must be halted until [NOAA Fisheries] is able to review and analyze the impacts to the endangered whales and other marine mammals and NMFS should require more stringent mitigation measures to protect these animals that are dying at rapid rates,” the groups said in an April 18 filing.

Read the full article at E&E News

Lawmakers Discuss Delaware Offshore Wind Bill, Delawareans React

April 25, 2024 — On Wednesday, Delaware lawmakers discussed Senate Bill 265, also known as The Delaware Energy Solutions Act of 2024, which lays the framework for the state to buy offshore wind energy.

The bill essentially paves the way for increased use of carbon-free energy sources and a commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions in Delaware.

Under the bill, Delaware would be able to solicit bids for the purchase of offshore wind energy ranging from 800 to 1,200 megawatts.

Proponents of the bill, like Rehoboth Beach resident Jim Bovender, are enthusiastic about its potential environmental benefits.

Read the full article at WBOC

U.S. Plots 12 Offshore Wind Lease Auctions by 2028 and Revises Rules

April 25, 2024 — The Biden administration is moving forward aggressively to expand the U.S. offshore wind energy industry including mapping out a five-year plan for up to a dozen new leases and streamlining and modernizing the rules for development. All of this comes as the industry however continues to struggle to get projects from concept to reality with New York suffering the latest setback in moving forward with approved projects.

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the new five-year offshore wind leasing schedule which anticipates auctions in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and the waters offshore of the U.S. territories in the next five years. The leasing schedule includes four potential offshore lease sales in 2024 (Central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, Gulf of Mexico, and Oregon). It will be followed by one each in 2025 (Gulf of Mexico) and 2026 (Central Atlantic), two in 2027 (Gulf of Mexico and New York Bight), and four in 2028 (California, a U.S. Territory, Gulf of Maine, and Hawaii).

The new schedule is a follow-on to a 2021 timeline that called for seven lease sales by 2025. The previous plan included a commitment to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and a target goal of permitting at least 25 gigawatts of onshore renewable energy by 2025. Currently, the U.S. has just over 240 MW installed offshore, which is up from 42 MW last year.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Vineyard Wind fisheries compensation meetings

April 24, 2024 — Offshore wind developers Vineyard Wind will hold a series of open-house events where fishermen can apply for a program to compensate for losses from development of the 804-megawatt offshore wind turbine array off southern New England.

The Vineyard Wind Fisheries Compensatory Mitigation Program is open from March 4 to June 3. To qualify for the program, commercial fishing vessel owners/ operators are required to submit an online application during the eligibility period.

The ongoing eligibility period to June 3 is the only time that commercial fishing vessel owners/operators will be able to qualify for compensation from the program. Vineyard Wind is hosting events to help fishermen apply for the program, each day from 9 a.m to 12 p.m.:

April 23: Montauk Fish Dock, 478 W. Lake Dive, Montauk, N.Y.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

ICYMI: Secretary Haaland Announces New Five-Year Offshore Wind Leasing Schedule

April 24, 2024 — The following was released by BOEM:

In remarks at the International Partnering Forum conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, today, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a new five-year offshore wind leasing schedule, which includes up to 12 potential offshore wind energy lease sales through 2028. Future offshore wind energy lease sales from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) are anticipated in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific, and the waters offshore of the U.S. territories in the next five years. The leasing schedule includes four potential offshore lease sales in 2024, one each in 2025 and 2026, two in 2027, and four in 2028. More information can be found on BOEM’s website.

New York cancels three offshore wind contracts

April 22, 2024 — Provisional contracts for three New York Bight wind projects were cancelled, after “technical and commercial complexities” made it impossible for developers to move forward, New York State energy planners announced Friday.

The projects were provisionally awarded in October 2023 with New York’s third round of renewable energy solicitation. The cancellations are tied to General Electric’s decision not to proceed with building 18-megawatt turbines, meaning costs would go up using more, smaller machines, Politico and E&E News reported. 

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority said it had to close out the offshore third round without final contract awards. GE’s move to stick with smaller turbines was a key factor, according to NYSERDA.

“Subsequent to the provisional award announcement, material modifications to projects bid into New York’s third offshore wind solicitation caused technical and commercial complexities between provisional awardees and their partners, resulting in the provisionally awarded parties’ inability to come to terms,” according to an agency statement.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Rising Costs Sink New York Ocean Wind Projects, Is New Jersey Next?

April 22, 2024 — This week, rising costs sunk three offshore wind farm projects in New York State. After a tumultuous year on the other side of the river, New Jersey lost two large projects being built by Danish wind energy giant 0rsted. 0rsted bailed on New Jersey, and costs are continuing to rise, making previous wind energy deals unaffordable.

Can New Jersey be the next in the line of turbine dominos to fall?

Read the full article at Shore News Network

Offshore wind turbines won’t reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is why

April 22, 2o24 — Offshore wind farms are touted as the energy wave of the future. As we venture further into the era of renewable energy, offshore wind farms have been celebrated as beacons of progress, promising to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and curb carbon emissions. This narrative, championed by government officials and wind farm companies alike, paints an effervescent picture of a sustainable future. Yet, the gap between this optimistic vision and the sobering reality is wider than many might expect. The reality is that offshore wind may increase the total amount of emissions, perhaps even exceeding current levels as the unpredictability of wind forces existing fossil fuel plants to work overtime.

Studies in the Netherlands, Ireland, Colorado, and Texas have all found that adding wind farms causes existing fossil fuel plants to produce more CO2.  As the amount of wind farms increases, the total CO2 released also increases, making emissions as high or even higher than they would have been with no wind farms. No study has contradicted this finding.

When discussing electricity, it is important to remember two fundamental characteristics. First, electricity cannot be stored at reasonable cost or in any significant amount. Second, the amount of electricity being produced must, at each instant, equal the amount being consumed, or the system will collapse. This means that the output of the fossil generating plants must vary their output to match the wind gusts and lulls.

Read the full article at northjersey.com

Major offshore wind projects in New York canceled, scallop industry likely to benefit

April 20, 2024 —  Politico reported today that three New York offshore wind projects are being scrapped. NYSERDA, the state authority in charge of offshore wind deals, announced Friday that no final agreements could be reached with the three projects that received provisional awards in October 2023. 

This decision has nothing to do with concerns raised by fishing interests, but it is good news, particularly for the scallop industry. 

  • The Attentive Energy One project area is in the New York Bight scallop access area, which is an important scallop ground. 
  • The Community Offshore Wind project has some scallop grounds in it, but it’s also adjacent to highly productive traditional grounds, so it could impact seeding of larvae. 
  • Excelsior Wind by Vineyard Offshore has an open bottom scallop fishing area in it. 

The three bids, Attentive Energy One, Community Offshore Wind, and Excelsior Wind, were all linked to major supply chain investments by General Electric and a larger turbine it planned to build. In February, GE decided not to move forward with an 18-megawatt turbine. NYSERDA confirmed that was the main reason no final awards were made. 

There has also been a limit to the degree to which state utility regulators are willing to let the rates go up, which means there’s a cap on how much the companies can earn per megawatt. The overriding question is: Could they produce this power from wind and make money at current rates, given the cost to install these turbines? Apparently, the answer was no. 

US sets out cost benefits of offshore wind grid ahead of rule changes

April 20, 2024 –As offshore wind developers deploy the first large arrays along the U.S. East Coast, plans are in motion to create an offshore grid network.

The first large offshore wind farms, such as the 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1, opens new tab project in Massachusetts, will connect to land via direct ‘radial’ transmission lines but an interlinked offshore network along the U.S. Northeast coast could help optimise wind assets and make the grid more reliable, according to a two-year study by the Department of Energy (DOE).

The Biden administration aims to install 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and the DOE proposes an interregional transmission network built over the next decade that would offer a higher benefit to cost ratio than other scenarios.

Offshore wind capacity of 30 GW would require 24 points of interconnection and 14 of these would offer “weak grid strength conditions” for offshore wind output if only radial links were developed, the DOE said in its report, based on research by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

Read the full article at Reuters