Saving Seafood

With federal approval of South Fork wind farm, construction could begin early next year

November 29, 2021 — A second major offshore wind farm near the Rhode Island coast has won federal approval.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management this week approved construction and operation of the South Fork Wind Farm, a 132-megawatt project proposed in a stretch of Rhode Island Sound between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.

The project being planned by Danish company Ørsted and utility Eversource is only the second commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the nation to secure approval from the federal government.

The first, Vineyard Wind, received a record of decision in May and marked its groundbreaking a week ago in Massachusetts. The 800-megawatt project is being built in an area south of Nantucket, further off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts than the South Fork proposal.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

BOEM approves South Fork Wind ‘habitat alternative’ plan

November 26, 2021 — The South Fork Wind project design will be reduced from 15 turbines to 12 under a modified construction and operations plan, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management confirmed in a record of decision Wednesday.

The agency adopted a “habitat alternative” turbine layout as its preferred plan out of the environmental impact study for the project, planned for 35 miles east of Montauk, N.Y., by wind developers Ørsted and Eversource.

Originally leased by Rhode Island wind power pioneers Deepwater Wind – the startup later absorbed by Ørsted – the South Fork tract is about 19 miles southeast of Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine, 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm, the first U.S. offshore commercial wind installation.

On track to start construction in January 2022, South Fork with about 130 MW capacity would follow the 800 MW Vineyard Wind project underway off southern Massachusetts.

Named for the southeast corner of Long Island, the South Fork project is touted as one answer to the island’s growing power supply needs and New York State’s goal of 9,000 MW or renewable energy.

Skeptics dispute the project’s real power potential, and New York and Rhode Island commercial fishermen are fighting against the disruption looming for their industry.

Read the full story at National Fisherman