Saving Seafood

Giant turbines will generate power at New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm

January 7, 2021 — New Jersey’s first offshore wind farm will also be among the first in the world to be powered by the biggest and most powerful turbines ever built, the project’s developer said.

Ocean Wind, a planned farm about 15 miles off Atlantic City, is due to start operating in 2024, using as many as 99 Haliade-X turbines — giant machines that will tower 853 feet (260 meters) above the ocean’s surface, using blades that are 351 feet (107 meters) long, and can each generate enough electricity to power 16,000 homes.

The technology, built by GE, has a working prototype near the Port of Rotterdam in The Netherlands, but it hasn’t yet been commercially deployed. The turbines are also scheduled to be used for the planned Skipjack wind farm — much smaller than the New Jersey project — off the coast of Maryland, that is expected to start operating by the end of 2023.

GE says each of the turbines, each with a 12-megawatt (MW) capacity, can generate emissions-free electricity that equates to taking 10,000 cars off the road annually.

Read the full story at the New Jersey Spotlight

Wind Power In Louisiana: High Potential, A Long Way Off

December 29, 2020 — Gov. John Bel Edwards has set a goal for Louisiana to be carbon neutral by 2050, but so far, the state is behind its neighbors. Now, Edwards wants to develop offshore wind power in the Gulf.

It’s something that’s already happening in other parts of the country — with help from a Louisiana company, even.

Just off the rocky coast of Rhode Island, five giant white wind turbines turn in the wind. It’s the first commercial offshore wind farm in the U.S., partially built by Gulf Island Fabrication, a Houma-based steel fabricator. The company used its expertise in old-school oil platforms to build the bases for the nearly 600-foot tall wind turbines.

Edwards is asking the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to launch a task force to figure out what it would take to build those here.

“This is not some ‘pie in the sky’ promise of economic opportunity,” Edwards said in a statement. “We already have an emerging offshore wind energy industry, and Louisiana’s offshore oil and gas industry has played a key role in the early development of U.S. offshore wind energy in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Read the full story at WRKF

MAINE: Fishing industry grapples with state’s offshore wind array plan

December 18, 2020 — The state’s plan to install an array of wind-energy turbines off Maine’s southern coast for research purposes has prompted concerns among fishermen.

“You’re shutting down habitat that we fish now so you’ll be displacing a lot of guys who are fishing out there,” said Portland lobster fisherman John Bisnette.

His observations came during an informational webinar hosted Tuesday by the Governor’s Energy Office and the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The Governor’s Energy Office is the lead agency in the array’s development. The webinar was one of three the agency was holding this week and next to get input from the fishing industry about potential siting and impacts of the array.

“The state has initiated a collaborative process that gives fishermen and other stakeholders direct influence in the development of the proposed project,” according to the meeting announcement.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Offshore wind in its sails

December 18, 2020 — The Biden administration takes over on Jan. 20, and when it does, it’s expected that offshore wind energy’s prospects in the U.S. will improve greatly.

As Kirk Moore writes in the January issue of WorkBoat, offshore wind occupied a curious position in the Trump administration — often mocked and belittled by the president in public even as his own former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) forged ahead enabling plans for 15 East Coast offshore projects and studying prospects off California.

But in the new administration, expect to see more of 2010, when then-Interior Secretary Ken Salazar predicted offshore wind would become a major U.S. energy source. Also, expect Biden to revive the Obama administration’s “all of the above” energy strategy.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Dutch Group Expands Support of U.S. Offshore Wind

December 17, 2020 — A European company considered a leader in the offshore wind sector has signed on to help develop a major project off the Massachusetts coast. Ventolines, a Dutch company that worked on the first commercial U.S. offshore wind project, on Dec. 16 announced it has opened a U.S. office and will support construction of the Mayflower Wind installation.

Mayflower Wind is a planned 804-MW offshore wind project about 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, and 23 miles south of Nantucket. The project, expected to come online in 2025, already has power purchase agreements with Massachusetts utilities. The installation is a joint venture of Shell New Energies and Ocean Winds, which is the global offshore wind collaboration between ENGIE and EDP Renewables.

“We are proud to be part of the team bringing more wind farms and sustainable energy to the U.S.,” said Thibaut de Groen, Ventolines’ Director of Contracting and Construction, on Wednesday. Ventolines supervised the installation of wind turbines and advised on asset management for the 30-MW Block Island wind farm (Figure 1) off the Rhode Island coast, which came online in 2017 and was the first U.S. offshore wind project.

Read the full story at Power Magazine

Keel laid for ship that will build major Virginia offshore wind project

December 17, 2020 — The keel has been laid for the vessel that will help create an $8 billion offshore wind farm off the Virginia coast, which will be the largest offshore wind project in the United States.

Dominion Energy made the announcement on Wednesday, calling it a “monumental step for the offshore wind industry in America.” The keel is the bottom-most central steel structural beam on a vessel.

The 472-foot ship, which will be the first Jones Act compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel, is being constructed by the global marine shipbuilding firm Keppel AmFELS at its Brownsville, Texas shipyard. Officials have lauded its domestic-focused supply chain, which will use more than 14,000 tons of U.S. steel, most from Alabama and West Virginia.

Read the full story at WAVY

Vineyard wind project officially taken off the table for now

December 17, 2020 — As far as the Trump administration is concerned, Vineyard Wind is no longer in line to be the first utility-scale offshore wind development in the United State.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management officially declared Vineyard Wind’s federal permitting process “terminated” with a posting published in the federal register Wednesday.

Precisely what that means is unclear for the fate of a project that is supposed to deliver renewable energy to Massachusetts and had been in line to be the first major offshore wind farm in America.

On Dec. 1, Vineyard Wind announced that it had temporarily withdrawn its construction and operations plan from further review by BOEM, referring to it as a “pause [in] the ongoing process” that would not delay the planned start of clean power generation in 2023. But based on BOEM’s posting Wednesday, the federal government is treating the withdrawal as the end of the road, at least for now, for Vineyard Wind.

Read the full story at WWLP

Recent Offshore Wind Changes Offer Promise for Protection of Domestic Fishing

December 17, 2020 — Change is in the wind as three developments have modified the seascape for offshore wind in favor of fisheries.

Defense legislation affirming Jones Act compliance for offshore projects, a decision affecting the Massachusetts-planned Vineyard Wind project and an interior legal memo all help reinforce the importance of fisheries and domestic business when offshore wind projects are proposed.

Read the full story at Seafood News

CHRIS MCCARTHY: Is Vineyard Wind Dead or Just Playing Dead?

December 17, 2020 — The New Bedford fishing industry is celebrating the announcement that Vineyard Wind has withdrawn from the federal permitting process and the process has ended.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a part of the Department of the Interior, issued a statement on Tuesday, December 15, that finalizes the end of the permitting process to build an 800-megawatt wind energy turbine off of the coast of Massachusetts.

Because Vineyard Wind withdrew from the process on December 1, 2020, the permitting process “is no longer necessary and the process is hereby terminated.”

Termination of the process “is effective immediately” and that exact verbiage is used in the letter to the government by Vineyard Wind and by the government in its announcement.

Read the full story at WBSM

BOEM Gives Seafood Industry a Breather: Vineyard Wind Process Terminated

December 17, 2020 — The offshore wind energy hurricane just hit the doldrums: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management just terminated a key process for the Vineyard Wind project off the East Coast. But the move has implications beyond just the one project.

In a Federal Register notice set to publish Wednesday, BOEM says the preparation of an environmental impact statement is no longer necessary and the process is terminated.

Read the full story at Seafood News