Saving Seafood

New Jersey awards 2,658 megawatts in biggest U.S. pact

July 1, 2021 — The EDF/Shell Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind venture and a second phase of Ørsted’s Ocean Wind project were awarded a combined 2,658 megawatts of capacity by New Jersey utilities regulators Wednesday, in what state officials call the largest U.S. combined award to date.

The vote by the state Board of Public Utilities raises the state’s total planned capacity to over 3,700 MW, nearly half of a goal of 7,500 MW by 2035 set by Gov. Phil Murphy.

The board allocated 1,510 MW to Atlantic Shores and 1,148 MW to Ocean Wind II for their neighboring federal leases off Long Beach Island and Atlantic City, N.J.

Both developers will build new manufacturing facilities at the New Jersey Wind Port planned at the mouth of the Delaware River in Salem County, and use a foundation manufacturing facility upriver at the Port of Paulsboro, state officials said. Those projects are projected to be commissioned in 2027 through 2029.

“Combined, the two projects are estimated to create 7,000 full- and or part-time jobs across the development, construction and operational phases of the projects. This yields approximately 56,000 full time equivalent job-years, as some jobs will be shorter term and others will last for many years,” according to a BPU statement. “They will also generate $3.5 billion in economic benefits and power 1.15 million homes with clean energy.”

The BPU agreement requires the developers to contribute $10,000 per megawatt of capacity – some $26 million in all – to fund environmental research initiatives and wildlife and fishery monitoring in the region, with the money administered by the BPU and state Department of Environmental Protection.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Offshore wind projects line up for federal review

June 30, 2021 — The pipeline of offshore wind projects is coming into clearer view with federal officials this week planning to start their official review of a development that could offer as much as 2.3 gigawatts of power to northeastern states.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management plans on Wednesday to publish a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind South, a project of up to 130 turbines that the company, which is separately developing a project solely for Massachusetts utilities, plans to build out in phases. The first phase, 804 MW of power, is earmarked as Park City Wind and is under contract with Connecticut.

The notice of intent will kick off a 30-day public comment period during which BOEM will hold three virtual meetings to identify issues it should consider as it prepares a draft environmental impact statement which will then be subject to further review and its own approval. Earlier this month, BOEM began a similar process for Equinor’s 816-megawatt Empire Wind project that’s expected to deliver power to New York.

The Vineyard Wind South project is planned for the remaining southwestern portion of the 260 square mile lease area that will host the Massachusetts-contracted Vineyard Wind I project at the northeastern end. If the Vineyard Wind South project is fully developed, BOEM said it could include “up to 130 wind turbine generators, two to five offshore substations, inter-array cables, and up to five export cables connecting to the onshore electric grid in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, at up to three onshore substations.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Offshore wind developers fund shorebird study

June 30, 2021 — Red knot shorebirds make epic annual migrations, some logging up to 18,000 miles from the southern tip of South America to Canada and back, dropping down onto Delaware Bay beaches in May to gorge on horseshoe crab eggs.

That ancient pattern was disrupted by overharvesting of horseshoe crabs for commercial fishing bait in the 1990s. Biologists say neither the crab nor red knot populations have fully recovered yet.

Now, the prospect of dozens, perhaps hundreds of wind turbines spinning over waters on the East Coast outer continental shelf raises questions of how those structures may affect the red knot, considered a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Developers Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind LLC engaged one of the world’s top experts to find out.

“The birds jump off from Cape Cod, Brigantine, Stone Harbor,” said Larry Niles, ticking off coastal Massachusetts and New Jersey feeding grounds for the red knots. “We know the birds are going through the wind (power) areas.”

As the former chief of New Jersey’s Endangered and Non-Game Species Program, Niles started the Delaware Bay Shorebird Project, now in its 25th year of monitoring the migration. He’s now principal of Wildlife Restoration Partners, with years of experience assessing the health of red knots with other shorebirds and working on wind power studies.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

100s More Offshore Wind Turbines Greenlighted for New Jersey Coast

June 30, 2021 — New Jersey cleared the way for hundreds of wind turbines off the state’s coast in coming years through approvals Wednesday of 2,658 megawatts in offshore wind power.

Two wind farm projects were approved, and would provide enough power for 1.1 million homes, officials said.

The approvals add to the 1,100 megawatts already given the green light by New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities, which announced approval of the new projects at a special meeting. New Jersey now has approved the second-most offshore wind power of any state, behind only New York.

The two projects are a 110-turbine wind farm by Atlantic Shores, which is owned by European power companies Shell New Energies US and EDF Renewables North America, and a 82-turbine farm by Ørsted called Ocean Wind 2.

Atlantic Shores’ farm will be located about 10.5 miles off the coast of shore towns north of Atlantic City. Ørsted’s Ocean Wind 2 will be nearly 14 miles off Cape May.

But the massive amount of power still needs to get through federal permitting and navigate potential hurdles such as lawsuits from fishing interests and shore communities. None of the offshore wind farms are expected to begin construction until mid-2023 at the earliest, and the two newest projects are not expected to come online until 2027 at the earliest.

Read the full story at NBC Philadelphia

Proposed Offshore Wind Projects Could Cost NJ Tourism Billions, Says LBI Rental Business Owner

June 30, 2021 — Citing a University of North Carolina study, the founder of Vacation Rentals LBI said the economic impact of proposed offshore wind farms to be located off the coast of Long Beach Island would be in the billions and half of all tourism dollars in New Jersey.

Ship Bottom resident Duane Watlington’s comments came during the online June 23 LBI Coalition for Wind Without Impact forum in which more than 200 individuals tuned in to hear speakers discuss environmental, socio-economic and recreational fishing concerns. His business portfolio also includes Vacation Rentals Ocean City, New Jersey, and Vacation Rentals Wildwood. All three businesses connect vacationers with rental homeowners and real estate agencies.

The UNC study found more than half of rental home vacationers would choose to rent elsewhere if wind turbines are visible from the shoreline, according to Watlington’s presentation.

The closest western, or inshore, boundary of the proposed Atlantic Shores lease site is 10 miles from Barnegat Light and 9 miles from Holgate. The lease area has the potential to generate 3 gigawatts of offshore wind energy.

The Jersey Shore is responsible for nearly half of the overall tourism dollars in the state and generated over $22 billion in 2019 alone, according to Watlington.

Based on information from the UNC study, he said, an offshore wind farm would have an economic impact of roughly $12 billion annually.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

Rutgers, Offshore Wind Company Investigates Clams Off New Jersey

June 29, 2021 — Atlantic Shores is a partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. The joint venture plans to develop more than 183,000 acres of land between Atlantic City and Burnegat Light, 10 to 20 miles from the New Jersey coast.

When fully developed, the region could generate over 3,000 megawatts of wind energy, which is sufficient to power about 1.5 million households.

Jennifer Daniels, Development Director at Atlantic Shores, said: “By applying tools like this simulator, we can responsibly develop leased areas and provide renewable energy to the New Jersey community with minimal impact on the fishery.”

New Jersey power regulators may decide to approve the company’s proposal later this month.

Read the full story at Pennsylvania News Today

Feds to begin review of wind farm off Long Beach

June 25, 2021 — A $3 billion proposal to build what would be New York state’s largest offshore wind farm is taking shape, with plans to run an underground cable through Long Beach to a substation near the E.F. Barrett Power Station in Island Park. A precise location for the cable has not yet been determined.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will soon begin an environmental review of the construction and operation of what would be called Empire Wind, off Long Island’s South Shore. The review is expected to take two years, and the project would need state approval as well. Work on Empire Wind would begin no sooner than 2023. Long Beach would not be involved in the approval process, but would help determine the location of the underground cable.

The wind turbines would be about 15 miles offshore.

The Long Island Commercial Fishing Association is strongly opposed to the project, claiming that fish, and fishermen, will be adversely affected.

Equinor, a company based in Norway, has been awarded contracts by New York state, the first in 2019, to supply 816 megawatts of power to the state grid, connecting in Brooklyn. A second contract, for 1,260 megawatts, was awarded in January, for Long Island’s South Shore.

Read the full story at the LI Herald

Sen. Shaheen Backs Plan To Split Offshore Wind Lease Revenue Among Coastal States

June 25, 2021 — A new bill backed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) would share the revenue from offshore wind development with coastal states like New Hampshire.

The bill proposes new uses for revenue generated by the sale of leases that allow developers to build wind farms in federal waters.

The federal government has sold hundreds of millions in offshore wind leases. Right now, the money goes back to the U.S. Treasury.

This plan would send half of it to states that are adjacent to approved wind projects. They could use the money for coastal resilience and climate change adaptation projects, fisheries research and conservation work.

Most of the remaining revenue would go to a similar existing grant program for coastal and Great Lakes communities.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

Impact of Offshore Wind on Commercial Fishing Industry Discussed

June 24, 2021 — Four-decade scallop fisherman and Viking Village fleet owner Jim Gutowski laid out the scope in size of one offshore wind farm turbine as a backdrop to his talk on “The Impact of Offshore Wind Farms on Our Commercial Fishing Industry” at the June 19 meeting of the Barnegat Light Taxpayer’s Association.

“They’re going to be a little over five times the height of the (Barnegat) lighthouse. The tripod that that’s going to sit upon is about a block (in size). So, we’re talking about massive structures. The span of those blades on those turbines, they’re going to be about two football fields from tip to tip.”

Gutowski voiced concern about impact on commercial seafood catch and other sea life of a proposed 200- to 250-turbine array in an area of the ocean stretching from Barnegat Light to Atlantic City. The project is awaiting final approval.

The Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind lease is located on 183,353 acres in what he noted is a “flourishing fishing ground that you’ve had fishermen for the last 20 years break their backs to sustain.” He was referring to research and alterations that the scallop industry has made to successfully preserve a harvest for future years.

The Joint Council of Taxpayers Associations of Long Beach Island compiled a Frequently Asked Questions summary of the wind farm project 10 miles east of Long Beach Island, which is on the website barnegatlighttaxpayer.org under the subheading “Weather and the Environment.” The BLTA has 573 member households, but the website is accessible to the public.

Read the full story at The Sand Paper

VIRGINIA WIND TURBINE PILOT PROGRAM EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS

June 23, 2021 — The two-turbine pilot program of Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind venture has yielded better results than expected.

The pilot is Dominion’s precursor for plans to install 180 wind turbines in a leased block on the Atlantic’s continental shelf roughly 27 miles off Virginia Beach, at a cost currently projected at $8 billion. In doing so, Dominion is following a General Assembly directive to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Running since October, the two 600-foot tall pilot turbines, each driven by three 253-foot-long blades, are giving Dominion’s engineers a real-world education in the potential for Virginia coastal wind power. The turbines’ efficiency over winter and spring is beating the forecasts, and their downtime for maintenance is less than expected (about two percent).  Automated controllers that turn their mounts to “aim” them and adjust the blade angles to “harvest” the wind have proven more effective than human operators.

Still to be determined, though, is how well they perform in the summer months when winds drop below the 5–8 knots needed to start the blades. Scientific field studies are showing fish using the area and minimal interactions with birds, according to cameras on the towers.

The news may be encouraging, but the project still faces many challenges. The immediate one is the environmental impact statement needed for the full 180-turbine wind farm. Dominion plans to have a draft out for public comment next year and a final version in the fall of 2023.

Read the full story at the Chesapeake Bay Magazine