Saving Seafood

Cape chamber, Board of Commissioners sue federal government over offshore wind approval

October 17, 2023 — A group of plaintiffs that includes the Cape May County Board of Commissioners and the county Chamber of Commerce is suing the federal government over claims it failed to factor in impacts to the county’s $7.4 billion tourism industry when it granted approvals for offshore wind development.

The suit names the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Department of the Interior and the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was filed Tuesday in Camden federal court, records show.

BOEM declined to comment on pending litigation. NOAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit follows Ørsted, the Danish energy company building wind turbines off the coast, putting down a $100 million guarantee that the first windmills of its 161,000-acre Ocean Wind I project will begin generating power by December 2025.

Read the full article at The Press of Atlantic City

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island Revises Terms as It Issues Its Largest Wind Power Solicitation

October 17, 2023 — Rhode Island is moving forward with the state’s largest renewable energy solicitation after announcing it would form a three-state partnership with Connecticut and Massachusetts to review and coordinate a regional approach to offshore renewable energy. At the same time, Rhode Island is also providing additional latitude to developers to provide possible avenues to address the emerging financial challenges in the development of offshore wind energy resources.

The neighboring states each have recently had major offshore projects fall apart due to inflation pressures as well as rising costs due to supply chain problems and concerns over tax credits and incentive programs. Massachusetts agreed to let two projects pay fines to walk away from existing power purchase agreements and recently Connecticut also established a fine for a developer to cancel its power agreement. Last year, Rhode Island decided not to proceed with a proposed project saying that it was concerned over the affordability of the power coming from the offshore wind farm, while last week New York State turned down applications from developers that were seeking to increase the cost of power also citing inflation and rising costs to develop the projects.

Rhode Island’s state power company, Rhode Island Energy on Friday issued its anticipated request for proposals from offshore energy developers. The company is seeking to secure an additional 1.2 GW of offshore power to help address the state’s energy needs. The window to submit proposals runs through January 31, 2024, with the company saying that any winning bids will be announced in the summer of 2024.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive

CALIFORNIA: ‘Another Attempt to Industrialize the Coast’: California’s Central Coast Residents Work to Stop — or at Least Slow Down — Offshore Wind

October 17, 2023 — Joey Racano used to have a dining room table. Now the sunlit nook off the family kitchen more often than not serves as a conference room. The table is covered with maps, thick binders bulging with tech reports, towers of meeting minutes, abandoned coffee mugs — the accumulation of years of community vigilance.

On this day, his home is a lively place where a handful of locals are discussing one of California’s most complex and audacious initiatives — loading the Pacific Ocean with sprawling wind farms that float 20 miles from shore.

Read the full article at Santa Barbra Independent

RHODE ISLAND: Rhode Island Energy seeks proposals for additional 1,200 megawatts of offshore energy

October 16, 2023 — Rhode Island Energy on Friday issued a request for proposals to secure an additional 1,200 megawatts of offshore wind, the largest renewable energy solicitation ever sought for the state. 

This latest request, previously announced by Gov. Daniel J. McKee on Sept. 28, comes a week after Rhode Island joined New England’s first multistate offshore wind memorandum of understanding with Massachusetts and Connecticut.  

The MOU is meant to pave the way for a coordinated selection of offshore wind as each state solicits offshore wind energy generation through their own procurements. 

“Bringing more affordable offshore wind opportunities to Rhode Island and our region is a key priority for us,” said Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy. “We know there’s a sense of urgency to get more renewables online and we believe this next RFP will give developers a new, unique opportunity to think creatively about how they can meet the state’s clean energy and economic development goals, while balancing our customers’ affordability needs.” 

Read the full article at PBN

Massachusetts wind farm dodges lawsuits over environmental, fishing concerns

October 16, 2023 — A U.S. judge has rejected challenges to federal environmental permits and construction approvals for a $4 billion offshore wind farm near Massachusetts, which commercial fishing groups have claimed will harm whales and impair their businesses.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston on Thursday tossed the final two federal district court lawsuits directly challenging the Vineyard Wind project roughly 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, which would be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the country.

Commercial fishing groups including Seafreeze Shoreside Inc and the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance had challenged federal environment and construction permits for the project in two lawsuits filed in 2021 and 2022. They had claimed construction on the 62-turbine farm would cut fishermen off from valuable fishing areas and destroy the habitat of the North Atlantic right whale.

But Talwani said the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act gives regulators at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) discretion to balance the economic concerns of fishermen with the need for the development of offshore renewable energy projects, which are key to federal plans to decarbonize the U.S. electric grid. She found the fishing groups had not adequately shown their fishing business interests could be seriously harmed if whales are injured or harassed during construction, and so cannot sue over those concerns.

Read the full article at Reuters

NEW YORK: New York Refuses Revisions to Offshore Wind Power Agreements Creating Doubt

October 16, 2023 — New York State has put its ambitious plans for offshore wind energy in jeopardy after it declined requests from larger developers to renegotiate their power purchase agreements increasing rates to reflect current market conditions. The decision follows similar situations that have emerged in both Massachusetts and more recently Connecticut which are also threatening projects, while New York and New Jersey officials also continue to seek to push forward with the plans for offshore wind energy.

The decision of the New York State Public Service Commission on Thursday has set off a new round of industry fears. The price of the stocks of developers Ørsted and Equinor both were driven sharply lower on the news while the companies only said they would be forced to re-examine several projects. Ørsted’s stock price is now down by more than half from its 52-week high, falling nearly an additional nine percent for its U.S.-based depository receipts on Friday. While many other stocks in the sector were down today, Equinor rebounded closing the day up more than two percent.

The NYSPSC set off the concerns by announcing it had denied petitions from Empire Offshore Wind and Beacon Wind, being developed by Equinor and BP, and Sunrise Wind, being developed by Ørsted. Each of the petitions had requested an order from the commission that would have directed the New York power regulator New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to incorporate an adjustment mechanism into existing Renewable Energy Credit and the offshore wind power purchase agreements. The companies cited the impact of inflation and cost increases due to supply chain and other issues, which they say have combined to change the financial viability of the projects.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

RHODE ISLAND: R.I. Coastal Agency Approves New England Wind Project off Martha’s Vineyard

October 16, 2023 — Rhode Island coastal regulators gave the green light last week to another offshore wind project proposed for southern New England’s waters but without a key stakeholder in the room: the state’s fishing industry.

The Coastal Resources Management Council ruled by unanimous vote the 804-megawatt (MW) New England Wind project developed by Connecticut-based energy company Avengrid was consistent with federal and state regulations so long as it agreed to certain stipulations provided by agency staff. Final approval of the New England Wind project — formerly Vineyard Wind South — is left up to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The project would install 84 turbines in a lease area 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, and deliver electricity via a buried export cable that would make landfall in Hyannis, Mass. Except for a small portion of the export cable, the project is located entirely outside of Rhode Island state waters.

It is the first wind project to be considered by CRMC’s executive body without input from the Fisherman’s Advisory Board (FAB). The board, a stakeholder group staffed by recreational and commercial fisherman and representatives from other related marine industries, resigned in protest in August, alleging state regulators were ignoring their own regulations to approve offshore wind projects that would be harmful to the environment and the fishing industry.

CRMC executive director Jeff Willis said at last Tuesday’s meeting that FAB’s resignations would have no impact on the approval process for New England Wind, and that the agency has continued to reach out to the members of the board and ask for their participation.

Read the full article at EcoRi News

NEW JERSEY: Orsted puts up $100M guarantee that it will build New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm by 2025

October 15, 2023 — The Danish wind energy company Orsted has put up a $100 million guarantee that it will build New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm.

But it will lose that money if the project is not operating by Dec. 2025 — a year after the deadline approved by state utility regulators.

New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities approved an agreement Wednesday with Orsted under which the company would forfeit the money if the project is not up and running within 12 months of a series of deadlines previously ordered by the board.

Those deadlines call for the project to reach commercial operation in stages by May 1, Sept. 1 and Dec. 1, 2024. But it would forfeit the guarantee money if the project is not operational by December 2025.

Read the full article at the Associated Press 

New York rejects wind developers’ call for higher power prices

October 15, 2023 — New York State power regulators denied petitions by offshore wind developers to charge customers billions of dollars more in future energy sales, a setback that could threaten the viability of four projects and the state’s ambitions for renewable energy sources.

In announcing the denial Thursday, the New York State Public Service Commission said it “opted to preserve the robust competitive bidding process that provides critically needed renewable energy resources to New York in the fairest and most cost-effective manner that protects consumers.”

“The commission has repeatedly stated that competition in the procurement process is necessary to protect ratepayers and provides the soundest approach to mobilize the industry to achieve our critical State goals dependably and cost-effectively, and we do so again through today’s action,” said commission chair Rory M. Christian.

In its ruling the commission also turned down price increases for 86 land-based renewable energy projects. Granting the requests “outside the competitive procurement process would have resulted in as high as 6.7 percent increases for residential customers and as high as 10.5 percent for commercial or industrial customers,” according to the commission.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

NEW YORK: New York rejects bid to renegotiate offshore wind contracts

October 15, 2023 — NEW YORK OFFICIALS followed the lead of regulators in Massachusetts on Thursday, rejecting bids by four offshore wind developers to renegotiate the prices they were awarded in previously approved contracts because of sharply rising and unexpected costs.

The decision means the developers will have to either stand by the terms of their current contracts — which they say are unable to do because the prices are no longer sufficient to obtain financing — or cancel the agreements, pay termination fees, and possibly rebid their projects in future procurements.

The ruling by the Public Service Commission raises questions about whether New York will now be able to reach its 2030 goal of building a power grid with 70 percent of the electricity coming from renewable sources. But members of the commission unanimously held that granting huge prices increases to the developers in a non-competitive process would undermine the state’s regulatory framework.

“While we do not doubt that recent national and global events have affected electric generation developers, we are not confident that the relief proposed in the petitions would adequately protect ratepayers,” the commission said in its ruling. “As explained below, granting the requested relief would result in significant rate impacts unsupported by the discipline of competitive solicitation without providing commensurate assurance that the projects at issue would be developed in a timely and cost[1]effective fashion.”

Read the full at CommonWealth Magazine