Saving Seafood

Vineyard Wind Secures Transmission Agreement With ISO-NE

October 29, 2020 — Vineyard Wind has announced a transmission agreement with ISO New England (ISO-NE) to deliver power to the system operator’s grid when the Vineyard Wind 1 project comes online. The 800-MW offshore wind farm, located about 15 miles off the cost of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, is expected to be the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.

The project, expected online in 2023, is a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The transmission agreement was announced Oct. 28, just days after the group said it had submitted bids in response to New York State’s second solicitation for offshore wind power for its Liberty Wind project.

“We’re very pleased to reach this agreement, another important milestone in a project that will bring an entirely new industry to the U.S.,” said Sy Oytan, deputy CEO of Vineyard Wind, in a news release. “There is tremendous potential for job creation, not just during construction but also for operations and maintenance.  These are good paying jobs that will be around for decades to come.”

Read the full story at Power Magazine

World’s Biggest Offshore-Wind Company Sees U.S. Projects Lagging

October 29, 2020 — Orsted A/S, the world’s biggest offshore wind developer, expects four of its projects constituting about 2.8 gigawatts to be delayed beyond the expected 2023 and 2024 construction years, according to its interim financial report. Orsted’s explanation: it’s still waiting for clarity on the projects’ federal permitting process.

“We had expected to have received the notices of intent for the most progressed projects, but we can now see that will not happen before the election,” said Marianne Wiinholt, Orsted’s chief financial officer, on a call with reporters Wednesday. “We have to stand still for a period.”

The delay comes as offshore-wind proponents warn that limited resources at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management are constraining development. But funding decisions — including whether to hire more staff to work through a backlog of wind project applications — fall to Congress, not the U.S. Interior Department agency.

Read the full story at MSN

South Fork Wind Farm delayed until 2023

October 29, 2020 — Developers of the South Fork Wind Farm say the project isn’t expected to be operational until the end of 2023, a “significant” delay that is a year from LIPA’s contractual start date.

In a conference call Wednesday, the company cited the expectation that federal permitting delays that have stalled projects across the northeast will continue into 2021. Developer Orsted said federal regulators overseeing the project also have yet to confirm the company’s plan to farther space out turbines for the project at one nautical mile apart, in part to accommodate fishing and shipping interests.

The $2 billion-plus project, rated at 130 megawatts, is proposed for federal waters off Massachusetts/Rhode Island.

Federal regulators are expected to provide needed permitting approvals by October 2021, according to Orsted.

“Given the updated permitting schedule, we now expect South Fork Wind to be in operations by the end of 2023 rather than 2022 as initially expected,” spokeswoman Meaghan Wims said in a statement.

Read the full story at Newsday

New Jersey Releases Offshore Wind Strategic Plan

October 29, 2020 — The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved and published online the New Jersey Offshore Wind Strategic Plan on Sept. 9. The 500-plus-page document is the state’s comprehensive map for achieving 7,500 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035. It makes recommendations on establishing an offshore wind industry that achieves net economic benefits while also protecting the environment, commercial and recreational fishing interests, and mitigating the impacts of climate change.

While developing the state’s offshore wind resources, the state Department of Environmental Protection is tasked with identifying and prioritizing the research and monitoring the industry with ongoing habitat surveys as well as fish and wildlife studies.

Chief to the success of the industry is the offshore wind renewable energy certificate (OREC) funding mechanism, the method by which New Jersey ratepayers will fund offshore wind projects and how revenues from these projects will be refunded and delivered to ratepayers. OREC funding mechanism rules mandate that the OREC price reflect the total capital and operating costs for an offshore wind project, offset by any state or federal tax or production credits and any other subsidies or grants, as approved by the board.

Read the full story at The Sand Piper

Rhode Island set to double down on offshore wind power

October 28, 2020 — Rhode Island is set to double down on its commitment to offshore wind power.

The Ocean State became home to the first offshore wind farm in the nation with the completion of the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm in 2016 and followed up last year with a contract for another 400 megawatts of capacity from the proposed Revolution Wind project to be built southwest of Martha’s Vineyard.

Now, Gov. Gina Raimondo is looking to procure as much as 600 more megawatts of power generated by towering wind turbines that would rise up out of the ocean waters off southern New England.

Her administration announced on Tuesday that National Grid, the state’s main energy utility, is working on a request for proposals from offshore wind developers that is on track to be released early next year.

The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources is overseeing the drafting of the RFP, which is expected to be submitted for approval to the state Public Utilities Commission this fall. Any contracts that result from the bidding would also have to go before the commission for final approval.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

Black Sea Bass Sensitive to Ocean Noise in Wind Energy Development Areas

October 27, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Scientists looking at the effects of underwater pile driving and construction noise on sea life have found that black sea bass can hear these sounds. The noise may interfere with their natural behavior.

Their study is the first to look at the impact of ocean noise on this fish species. It found that younger fish were more sensitive to sounds than older fish. The frequencies at which the fish are most sensitive to sound directly overlap with frequencies of human-produced noise pollution. This noise comes from activities like shipping and the underwater construction required for offshore wind farms.

“No one knew for sure how much black sea bass can hear and how that changes as they age,” said Beth Phelan, a fishery biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s laboratory at Sandy Hook, New Jersey and a co-author of the study. “We do know that black sea bass are attracted to underwater structures, and have anecdotal information that they move away from noise. We had to first determine the range of sounds they can hear by giving them a type of hearing test, much like we do to humans.”

Black sea bass are a commercially and recreationally important fish in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, the coastal region from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina to southern New England. Wind farms planned in the region overlap with current black sea bass habitat, exposing fish to construction and operational noises. Pile driving, for example, produces sounds that might stress fish, impacting their choice of habitat, feeding, social interaction and reproduction.

Read the full release here

NEW JERSEY: New CEO vows Ørsted will fulfill jobs promises with offshore wind farm

October 26, 2020 — Ørsted Offshore North America, the Danish company that won the right to build an offshore wind farm about 12 miles southeast of Atlantic City in the Atlantic Ocean, has a new leader with New Jersey roots.

David Hardy, a 49-year-old American and Navy veteran, said Thursday he will make sure the company fulfills all of its promises to create jobs in offshore wind equipment manufacturing and supply chain services.

Hardy was born in the Fort Monmouth/Eatontown area of Monmouth County, but moved around the country growing up as his father was in the military.

He has replaced Thomas Brostrøm, the Dane who has been with the company 11 years and led its U.S. offshore wind efforts since 2015. Brostrøm will soon move back to Europe to become the leader of a global energy company, according to Ørsted.

Hardy has spoken to State Senate President Steve Sweeney about Sweeney’s concerns that Ørsted hasn’t worked fast enough to set up manufacturing and supply chain businesses in New Jersey.

Read the full story at the Press of Atlantic City

NEW JERSEY: Wind Conference Goes Virtual

October 26, 2020 — Hundreds attended the first in a series of virtual open houses about a wind farm off New Jersey’s southern coast, which proponents expect to be the start of a new clean energy industry in the region.  

Construction is expected to begin in the early 2020s, with the first project expected to provide power to a half-million New Jersey homes.   

The event was held remotely because of the pandemic. Kris Ohleth, senior stakeholder relations manager for Ørsted, the Danish company that won the contract for the first round of wind farm construction, in New Jersey, said they would’ve preferred to meet with the public face to face, but said that option is not practical.  

Participants in the Oct. 20 event signed up in advance and were emailed a link to the conference room. Before the event started, the link led to an image of a conference room much like any in the world, down to the lines of white folding chairs at a podium set at the front of the room.  

Read the full story at the Cape May County Herald

U.S. House of Representatives introduces bill with 25-GW by 2030 offshore wind target

October 22, 2020 —       

 

Read the full story at Windpower Engineering & Development

Ocean climate bill is a grab bag for marine stakeholders

October 21, 2020 — Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, today introduced the Oceans-Based Climate Solutions Act of 2020.

We could start with the irony of a representative from Arizona introducing an oceans climate bill, hailing not only from a landlocked state, but one most known for its lack of water.

But let’s instead lead with the fact that the blueprint for this bill was introduced and failed to make it out of committee in California — one of the nation’s most progressive states. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom has made an end run around the legislative process by creating an executive order to effect the changes in the bill that could not pass with votes.

The federal bill is more than a mixed bag. Reading its 324 pages felt like swinging at a piñata packed with a mix of treats and lit fireworks.

Read the full story at National Fisherman