Offshore Wnd Archives - Saving Seafood

Trump Strikes Blow To New England Wind Project With Cancellation Of Federal Funding For Salem Port

September 3, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s administration cancelled almost $34 million intended to develop a vacant industrial facility in Salem into an offshore wind terminal, striking another blow against the already beleaguered New England Wind project slated for installation southwest of Nantucket and the struggling U.S. offshore wind industry at large.

Avangrid, the offshore wind developer behind both New England Wind and Vineyard Wind, planned to use Salem to stage the former project. It’s unclear how the loss of federal funding for the port project will impact New England Wind, or if the developers can complete the project under Trump’s regulatory regime.

New England Wind has already been substantially delayed as a result of previous federal efforts to curtail offshore wind development, which have held up power purchase agreements with Massachusetts’ utilities.

The lease areas for New England 1 and New England 2, located west of Vineyard Wind, would include 129 wind turbines that the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates could power more than 900,000 homes each year.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

Nantucket group pushes wind challenge to Supreme Court

September 26, 2024 — The Nantucket anti-offshore wind organization ACK for Whales is pushing a lawsuit targeting the Vineyard Wind project to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Monday, the group officially requested the Supreme Court review its appeal of a decision reached by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is yet to be seen whether the Supreme Court will actually review the case.

Read the full article at The Martha’s Vineyard Times

Wind turbine ‘wake effect’ could reduce arrays’ power output by 30%

May 8, 2024 — Downstream turbulence from offshore wind turbines can reduce power generation at nearby turbines, substantially reducing the total potential from planned U.S. offshore wind projects, according to recent research from the Colorado University Boulder and National Energy Technology Laboratory.

The researchers’ paper published March 14 in the journal Wind Energy Science suggests that offshore wind turbines off the U.S. East Coast could rob neighboring turbine arrays of wind speed and thus power generation depending on daily conditions, by more than 30%.

“Wake effect” occurs when wind passes through turbines blades, when generators at the wind front (or ‘upstream’) extract energy from the wind.

“As a result, the wind slows down and becomes more turbulent behind the turbines. This means the turbines downstream get slower wind, sometimes resulting in lower power generation,” according to a Colorado State University summary of the research.

Read the full article at WorkBoat