Saving Seafood

Empire Wind construction plan approved

February 24, 2024 — Equinor’s construction and operations plan (COP) for the Empire Wind off New York was approved Feb. 22 by the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, the final permitting for a two-stage project with a potential maximum capacity of 2,706 megawatts.

“We are proud to announce BOEM’s final approval of the Empire Wind offshore wind project,” said agency Director Elizabeth Klein. “This project represents a major milestone in our efforts to expand clean energy production and combat climate change. The Biden-Harris administration is committed to advancing offshore wind projects like Empire Wind to create jobs, drive economic growth, and cut harmful climate pollution.”

The approval comes amid continued tumult and repositioning by offshore wind power developers. In late January Equinor and bp announced they would split their joint ventures, with Equinor taking full ownership of the Empire Wind 1 and 2 projects, and bp assuming full ownership of the Beacon Wind project. Equinor said it is rebidding the 810-megawatt Empire Wind 1 project into New York’s fourth solicitation.

Like other wind power companies, Equinor is seeking better power payment terms in the face of rising cost

Read the full article at WorkBoat

Equinor gets key US approval for New York offshore wind farm

February 24, 2024 — U.S. officials on Thursday gave Norway’s Equinor (EQNR.OL), approval to start building a massive offshore wind farm off the coast of New York, a positive milestone for a project that has faced soaring costs and does not have a power supply contract.

The plan approved by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management includes construction and operation of both the Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 facilities, which could power more than 700,000 homes annually once built.

“We are ready to get to work,” Molly Morris, president of Equinor Renewables Americas, said in a statement.

The offshore wind industry is expected to play a key role in helping the U.S. and states including New York meet their goals to decarbonize the power grid and combat climate change.

Equinor said construction of Empire Wind is on track to start later this year, and the project could start delivering power to New York by 2026.

Read the full article at Reuters

Dominion Energy Sells Half Virginia Offshore Wind Farm for $3B to Stonepeak

February 24, 2024 — Dominion Energy has agreed to sell half of its planned Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in a move the company reports is designed to reduce its risk profile as the giant wind farm moves into construction. The company will sell a 50 percent noncontrolling interest in a newly formed partnership to Stonepeak, one of the leading U.S. private equity firms that is focused on infrastructure.

Under the terms of the agreement, which requires regulatory approval, the companies would be partners in a newly created public utility that would be a subsidiary of Dominion Energy. The company reports it expects to receive approximately $3 billion representing half the construction costs of the wind farm. Dominion Energy will retain full operational control for the construction and operation of the wind firm with the two companies sharing in the costs.

The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm has completed its permitting and is approved to begin construction which is projected to cost approximately $10 billion. Dominion previously reported that the first components of the wind farm were already being staged in Virginia with the major contracts awarded for the project which they report remains on schedule and budget. There are provisions in the agreement for cost overruns above $11.3 billion.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

NEW YORK: EPA Air Permit Advances New York Offshore Wind Farm Project

February 22, 2024 — The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a Clean Air Act permit for Empire Offshore Wind LLC. The offshore wind farm will be in federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf about 12 nautical miles (13.8 miles) south of Long Island, NY and 17 nautical miles (19.6 miles) east of Long Branch, NJ. To ensure transparency, EPA sought and received public comment before the permit was finalized.

“EPA is happy to partner with New York state in leading the way to a clean energy future. When built, this project is expected to generate more than 2,000 megawatts of electrical power for New York State—enough to power as many as a million homes,” said Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia. “This project is part of a larger effort by the Biden Administration to invest in America and generate 30 gigawatts of clean, abundant energy from offshore wind by 2030.”

Read the full article at ECO Magazine

NEW JERSEY: Federal Agency Under Fire Over Offshore Wind Study

February 22, 2024 — Reacting to concerns that New Jerseyans have not been given enough time to review and comment on federal plans for offshore wind projects off the New York/ New Jersey shoreline, the nonprofit environmental group Clean Ocean Action held a public forum in Long Branch Feb. 20 to provide citizens with an opportunity to review and comment on the federal proposal.

Many residents, groups and activists are up in arms with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees the development of offshore energy projects.

On Jan. 12, the agency released a 1,400-page environmental review of future offshore wind development off of the New Jersey/New York shore. However, residents were only given until Feb. 26, or 45 days, to review and provide public comment on the document.

“That’s really not enough time,” said Clean Ocean Action executive director Cindy Zipf.

According to Zipf, the BOEM also did not provide residents an opportunity to be seen and heard in a “traditional” public forum.

“We are very, very concerned that the citizens whose livelihoods, whose quality of life, whose environment (will be impacted) will not face the deciders, the decision makers,” Zipf said.

The report, titled Draft Environmental Review of Future Development of Wind Lease Areas Offshore New York and New Jersey, assesses the potential biological, socioeconomic, physical and cultural impacts that could result from development activities for six commercial wind energy leases in an area off the New Jersey and New York shores known as the New York Bight. These six projects would span 488,000 acres of ocean off the Jersey Shore.

Read the full article at The Two River Times

MAINE: Offshore wind is coming to Maine. Here’s what we know.

February 21, 2024 — Labor unions, environmental advocates and many lawmakers are looking to Maine’s budding offshore wind industry to help transition the state into the future, as a climate-friendly driver of investment and jobs.

On Tuesday. Gov. Janet Mills announced that Sears Island on the northern tip of Penobscot Bay would be the location of a new port from which floating turbines would be assembled and launched into the Gulf of Maine.

This isn’t the first time Maine has tried to procure the alternative energy source.

Back in 2010, the state began working with international oil and gas company Statoil on a $120 million offshore wind pilot project that never came to fruition. Then-Gov. Paul LePage was opposed to the project, arguing it didn’t provide enough benefits to the state, as reported by Bangor Daily News in 2013.

“We had the chance to do this 15 years ago, and we blew it,” said Kathleen Meil, senior director of policy and partnerships for Maine Conservation Voters, referring to the failed wind project.

But last legislative session, Mills signed a law that not only brought offshore wind back to life, but did so with high labor and environmental standards, which she says will help build quality jobs while achieving the goal of having infrastructure to create three gigawatts — enough to power between 675,000 and 900,000 homes — installed by the end of 2040.

Read the full article at the Maine Morning Star

MAINE: State selects Sears Island as preferred site for Maine’s new offshore wind port

February 21, 2024 — The state has selected Sears Island in Penobscot Bay as its preferred site for the new hub for Maine’s floating offshore wind power industry, where turbines and other components will be assembled and shipped to the Gulf of Maine, Gov. Janet Mills announced Tuesday.

The 100-acre site in Searsport was one of several considered in a more than two-year review by Maine officials. The location is on a one-third portion of Sears Island that the state Department of Transportation has reserved for development. The other two-thirds are in a permanent conservation easement held by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.

Mills touted the need to generate wind power to fight climate change while boosting skilled manufacturing jobs in a region that a local official said has not recovered from the 2014 shutdown of the Bucksport paper mill.

Read the full article at the Sun Journal

Offshore wind faces economic reckoning

February 16, 2024 — As pleas for government assistance mount, the odds of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power coursing through the nation’s transmission lines by 2030 are growing longer.

The pendulum has indeed swung against offshore wind as Northeast developers lump insufficient federal and state tax relief with skyrocketing costs, nagging supply chain bottlenecks and cumbersome permitting for, at best, delaying project start-ups. Ørsted’s bombshell decision on Oct. 31 to scrap two wind farms under development off New Jersey put a punctuation mark on a year that saw no less than 4.7 GW of planned wind power temporarily, or perhaps permanently scrapped.

That’s not to say some projects haven’t advanced on schedule, particularly for the consortiums that managed to lock in supplier contracts before inflation and interest rates rose. As of late November, a combined 932 megawatts of first power were on target to begin flowing through the grid at year-end 2023 from two wind farms off Massachusetts and New York. (The first of 12 turbines began delivering power in early December to New York’s Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) grid, marking the first utility-scale wind generation in U.S. federal waters.)

No new projects are scheduled to come online until 2025 when US Wind is expected to begin generating roughly 270 MW from its MarWin offshore wind farm off Ocean City, Md. 

Read the full article at WorkBoat

VIRGINIA: Virginia lawmakers delay decision on Dominion Energy’s offshore wind monopoly

February 15, 2024 — Renewable energy advocates have vowed to double down next year on legislation designed to enable competition with Dominion Energy on offshore wind projects serving Virginia.

A legislative committee unanimously tabled a proposal to let private developers compete with the utility on offshore wind procurement. The Senate Commerce and Labor Committee’s late January decision to push Senate Bill 578 onto the 2025 agenda followed intense lobbying from Dominion Energy to protect its monopoly.

Evan Vaughan, executive director of the Maryland-based Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Coalition Action (MAREC), was among the disappointed.

“We … will continue to advocate for competition as the best way for Virginia consumers to achieve a strong and cost-effective offshore wind industry,” Vaughan said in an interview.

Read the full article at Energy News Network

BOEM Approves Controversial Wind Energy Areas off Oregon

February 14, 2024 — After a months-long process of engagement with local fishermen and tribes, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has designated two final Wind Energy Areas off the Oregon Coast. Despite local opposition and skepticism from fisheries stakeholders, the areas will still go forward in BOEM’s planning process, but will be 11 percent smaller.

BOEM’s initial draft wind areas announced in August 2023 would have allowed the development of about 220,000 acres off Brookings and Coos Bay, with power generation potential of about 2.6 GW. After months of stakeholder meetings, held at the request of the state’s governor and both of its senators, the revised final areas cover about 195,000 acres – about 11 percent smaller than the draft – and have about 2.4 GW of generation potential. The physical locations and distances from shore are comparable to the draft areas.

The final result drew scathing criticism from the local fishing industry. Heather Mann, executive director of the Coos Bay-based Midwater Trawlers Cooperative, called BOEM’s engagement process “a slap in the face to Oregon’s coastal communities.”

“The final wind energy areas are slightly different from the draft wind energy areas produced earlier this year, but certainly not an acceptable or meaningful response to the many concerns including those raised by tribes, fishermen, marine scientists, environmentalists, and state and federal legislators,” said Mann.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive