Plenty of people in Ocean City, a popular beach community south of Atlantic City, are dead-set against a project proposed by Orsted and PSEG that still needs state approval to bring a power line onshore. “We don’t want this here in any way, shape or form,” said resident Suzanne Hornick, a leader of local opposition to the plan. The U.S. has 27 wind farm projects in development, with an additional five locations up for auction in California next month, according to the Business Network for Offshore Wind, a nonprofit dedicated to helping develop the offshore wind industry. If even a small portion of them were to face protracted legal or regulatory challenges, it could pose a serious obstacle to the industry. >click to read< 11:02
Tag Archives: Ørsted
Wind Farm Public Hearing Draws Passionate Statements
Residents of Ocean City overwhelmingly opposed an offshore wind energy farm during a virtual public hearing Monday night that also included strong support for the project from environmental and labor groups. “I speak for Protect Our Coast NJ,” Ocean City resident Suzanne Hornick said in public comments at Monday’s virtual hearing. “We don’t want this in any way, shape or form. This should be a question and answer. We should be able to ask questions.” The original format for the hearing was to be a question-and-answer session, but Orsted did not respond to comments or questions posed by the public Monday. Instead, Orsted representatives said the company will respond in writing after the end of the public comment period for the project on Nov. 28. Critics angrily accused Orsted of running a “sham” hearing. >click to read< 09:02
Brigantine residents express concerns about offshore wind projects
Having clean energy as a renewable resource may sound nice, but residents still have questions and concerns about the offshore wind projects planned just off the island’s coast, which is why the mayor held an informational meeting last weekend. Ørsted’s offshore wind farms, which are expected to have 98 wind turbines roughly 15 miles off the coast, are scheduled to be completed by 2024. Meanwhile, 111 Atlantic Shores offshore wind turbines are expected to be operational 10 miles off Brigantine by 2027. Many residents said the cons outweigh the pros. “I’m just trying to figure out the positives in this,” said resident Mary Anne Ford. “The pro column is a big blank slate.” >click to read< 07:21
Ocean City Presses Fight Against Offshore Wind Farm
The city has intensified its criticism of plans by developer Orsted, a Danish energy company, to run a transmission line under Ocean City’s streets to connect the offshore wind turbines to the land-based power grid at the former B.L. England Generating Station in Marmora. Critics have assailed the project as an offshore “industrial park” that would harm the environment, marine life, the commercial fishing industry and the shore’s critical tourism industry. They also say the towering turbine blades would be a visual blight when viewed from shore. “It affects all of our livelihoods,” said Michael DeVlieger, a former Ocean City councilman who is an outspoken opponent of the wind farm. >click to read< 11:40
Wind farm, groups agree on whale protections
The developers of an offshore wind farm and three environmental organizations announced Monday that they have reached an agreement to further protect rare North Atlantic right whales during construction and operation of the energy-generating project. The agreement involving Orsted and Eversource, developers of South Fork Wind off the coast of New England and New York, was signed by the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Conservation Law Foundation, the groups said in a joint statement. >click to read< 21:08
Ocean City not relenting in battle against offshore wind farm
Ocean City is not giving up its fight against a proposed offshore wind energy farm seeking state permission to run an underground transmission line through town to connect with the land-based power grid, Mayor Jay Gillian told local residents Saturday. “We still have a long way to go with this,” City Council President Bob Barr said he is beginning to sense that the project’s developer, the Danish energy company Orsted, may be growing concerned about the money it will ultimately have to spend to build the wind farm. “Right now, they’re burning through money like it’s nobody’s business,” Barr said of Orsted. “Eventually, they’re going to have to fish or cut bait on this.” Barr also said that Orsted does not want to have to spend a lot of time bringing the project online. He suggested that the longer Orsted has to wait, the more it may have second thoughts about developing the project. > click to read < 13:27
New York: Wind farm’s fish monitors irk fishermen
East-End fishermen expressing outrage over a fish-monitoring program funded by a wind-farm conglomerate that may end up leaving more than 40 large concrete blocks on the ocean floor in vital fishing grounds. A research boat was working off the coast near Wainscott Thursday to collect data and install new monitoring devices that are smaller and longer lasting than those installed just over a year ago. However, no plans have been developed to remove the 500-pound anchors for the older devices,,, Fishermen say Orsted has ignored their pleas to leave monitors out of crucial fishing grounds and to remove the 500-pound blocks. >click to read< 11:36
Right whale defenders question energy industry donations
A group opposing wind projects off the coast of Massachusetts released a report Tuesday that documents contributions from wind energy developers to environmental groups in the state, donations that the authors of the report say cast questions on the ability of groups to analyze the impacts that wind projects have on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. The report, released by the Save Right Whales Coalition, catalogs $4.2 million between wind developers like Vineyard Wind, Bay State Wind, and Orsted to environmental groups in Massachusetts such as the Environmental League of Massachusetts, New England Aquarium, and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. >click to read< 09:35
Offshore Wind: Nantucket project faces lawsuit that could impact Skipjack, U.S. Wind projects
Environmentalists are concerned about impact to sea mammals, such as whales and dolphins, The American Coalition for Ocean Protection has been created by the Caesar Rodney Institute to push back against offshore wind development, and they have joined the Vineyard Wind legal case as technical advisors. The case against Vineyard Wind could set a precedent for legal action to be taken locally, where Orsted and U.S. Wind have already secured OREC approvals to begin offshore wind development. The Vineyard Wind case claims there could be environmental harm to the threatened right whale from the project. A coalition in Cape Cod, Mass. the Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, in August filed a suit that calls for delay in the development of 2,000 wind turbines off Nantucket Island and Martha’s Vineyard. >click to read< 12:31
New Jersey: Offshore Wind Farm Project Generates Debate
An open house in Ocean City on Saturday to discuss the pros and cons of an offshore wind project, proposed for 15 miles off the South Jersey coast, evoked interest, concerns, questions, opposition and support. Concerns over how the project could affect tourism, the visual impact of the massive wind turbines offshore, and what it would do to marine life, migratory birds and the commercial fishing industry were raised by several speakers. photos, 3:25 minute video, >click to read< 12:01
OC residents worry offshore wind farm will destroy coastline without easing climate change
“When I first heard about it, in my imagination, it was just going to be one or two, similar to what they have off Block Island [in Rhode Island],” Hornick said. “And I thought, well, if it’s good for the earth and it’s going to be good for the environment, then we should think about doing it. And then I started to research it, and I found out that it’s not what it’s promised. And the magnitude of the project is such that I believe it will devastate our coastline.” The Biden administration has opened up the East Coast to massive commercial offshore wind farms, stretching from Massachusetts down to North Carolina,,, >click to read< 09:29
New Jersey fishing industry wonders if it can coexist with Biden’s planned massive wind farms
Clammers like Charlie Quintana are back from two days at sea on the Christy. Quintana worries about climate change: He says he’s noticed a change in the fisheries because of warming oceans. But he also worries that the hundreds of thousands of acres of wind farms planned for the East Coast will limit where he can catch clams,,, Surf clams were the first seafood to be regulated by the federal government, leading the way for what has become one of the most regulated industries in the nation. Where, when, how and how much are harvested is strictly monitored and enforced.,, “We are literally fighting for the existence of the clam industry to remain in the port of Atlantic City.” >click to read< 10:36
Bad Press for Block Island Wind Farm! The blades ain’t turning, questions of cables, and huge $$$ extra’s!
The Block Island wind farm has largely shut down – And so I can understand why no one wants to talk about how four of the farm’s five turbines have, without any public notice, stopped running this summer. I spent the better part of a week trying to learn why, It was an unsatisfying explanation. More troubling, the reburying of the cable, The last estimate to rebury the cable was $30 million, I can understand why Ørsted and the other wind company contenders jockeying for new development up and down the Eastern Seaboard might be worried about bad press for the Block Island system, given the growing opposition to wind farms from the fishing industry, consumer activists and coastal communities where cables are proposed to come ashore. Thank you for the exposure, David Collins! >click to read< 12:58
“They just took our democracy away, folks,” – Heroic Ocean City BLASTS Bill to Fast Track Offshore Wind Farm
City Council on Thursday night blasted state legislation that would speed up development of a proposed offshore wind energy farm as a blatant power grab that strips Ocean City and other local communities of New Jersey’s longstanding tradition of home rule. “Essentially, they’ve taken our right to home rule away from us,” said Councilman Michael DeVlieger, the governing body’s most outspoken critic of the wind farm project. In the latest salvo by Ocean City opposing the wind farm, Council voted 7-0 to approve a resolution that denounces state legislation that would make it easier for the Danish energy company Orsted to build the project off the South Jersey coast.,, “A foreign entity is driving the political machine,” >click to read< 19:34
New Jersey: Local Lawmakers Criticize Legislation to Fast-Track Offshore Wind Farm
“Suddenly, we’ve got a private, foreign company that is determining our position here. For the Legislature and governor to consider taking away home rule is shameful,” Cape May County Board of Commission Director Gerald Thornton said. Thornton and other critics of the wind farm proposed by the Danish energy company Orsted are also troubled by its possible harmful impacts,, Ocean City Council President Bob Barr said the legislation is “eliminating” decades of years of home rule for New Jersey towns in favor of Orsted. “It’s not even an American company”. “This unholy alliance was formed to steal sovereign U.S. territory in our 200-mile exclusive economic zone off our beloved Jersey Shore to build risky, unreliable, unwanted, unnecessary industrial wind farms,” said Tricia Conte, founder of Save Our Shoreline. >click to read< 09:46
New Jersey: Legislators Propose Bill To Limit Local Say Over Offshore Wind Farm Projects
The bill comes at a time when Ørsted’s proposed offshore wind project has been gaining opposition from several coastal communities concerned about the cables running underneath New Jersey beaches, including Ocean City and Long Beach Island. Assemblyman John Burzichelli, a southern New Jersey Democrat who sponsored the bill,,, “I can assure you, having been at ground zero of these discussions, we will allow nothing to happen that will disrupt Ocean City and the true gem that it is,” Burzichelli said at the state Assembly hearing during which the bill was advanced. >click to read< 08:45
RI Coastal Resources Management Council backs South Fork Offshore Wind Farm, fishermen object
The vote by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council in favor of the wind farm was made over the objections of fishermen, who argued that a mitigation package agreed to with developers Ørsted and Eversource would fall well short of adequately compensating them for losses caused by the installation and operation of the project’s 12 turbines. Certification that the wind farm is consistent with state coastal policies also came despite concerns raised by Save The Bay and others about the council’s permitting process for the wind farm, which would be built in an area called Cox Ledge in Rhode Island Sound that is home to a rich diversity of fish, including species of tuna and Atlantic cod. >click to read< 16:29
With the Ocean Wind Offshore Wind Farm on the horizon, a storm is building
Ocean Wind, according to those closely following the project, is headed for a series of turf wars, loud debates and protracted legal battles, even before the first turbine is sited off the coast of southern New Jersey.,, even supporters and opponents of the proposed wind farm at times disagree among themselves on how to move forward. Environmentalists, commercial fishermen, recreational boaters, labor unions, homeowners, boardwalk businesses, NIMBYs and ratepayer advocates are all circling Orsted, the Dutch wind power company behind what could be one of the largest wind farms in North America. Local, state and federal officials are also starting to feel the heat. Just about everyone involved, including David Hardy, CEO of Orsted US, worries the project could devolve into chaos. >click to read< 13:11
Silence from Shoreline Press on Undersea Electric Problems – We’re not talking what you can see, it’s what you can’t
All the exciting press about the installation of windfarms focuses on the seemingly blithe turbine blades swirling innocently in the free breeze,,, the mantra offered by Baker, Raimondo, Lamonte and Cuomo. The necessary undersea electric cables that connect the swan like turbines to the shore are viewed by the wind industry itself as their Achilles Heel. It has already shown its ugly face in the functioning of the five turbines off Block Island. This has placed an unexpected $80 million repair bill (just five turbines, mind you, and less that 18 miles of cable) on the rate payers. Orsted, which has 
bought the Rhode Island wind company, has publicly said “we do not discuss our financial matters.” The repair will take two years, and a large swath of ocean is closed to commercial fishing—blues, sword, squid, lobster, clams, flounder, haddock. No fishing! Trawl gear hauled along the bottom will catch on that now exposed cable and strum it like a banjo string. Twang! Snap!! >click to read< 16:54
Fishermen accuse wind farm giant of bullying in compensation row
North Norfolk fishermen say they are fearful for their future, after Ørsted, the Danish energy giant behind Hornsea Project Three took out a High Court injunction to prevent them from temporarily fishing in certain areas while it carried out surveys. The energy giant says it has always aimed to “work collaboratively with fishermen” held numerous discussions with the fishing community and legal action was a “last resort.” ,,, John Davies, chairman of the NNFS, who had been involved in talks with Ørsted on behalf of the society said: “We’re just pushed and sidelined out the way by the big multinational company. >click to read< 09:10
Euro invasion! “Ørsted is ready to mobilize.” – Town Trustees urge Ørsted to get fisheries studies underway immediately
Members of the East Hampton Town Trustees this week said that South Fork Wind Farm developer Ørsted needs to get fish population surveys started immediately, even though the actual proposal will not be finalized until later this spring, so as to be able to capture the full two seasons worth of data demanded by a fisheries study mandated in state approvals for the project. As one of the agreed-to conditions,,, Trustee John Aldred said that he and the Trustees attorneys, blah blah blah, blah blah blah,,, “I don’t want to be a defender of Ørsted, but,,, lol! >click to read< 13:11
I liked Mayor Passero’s State Pier comments before he signed a gag order
I am sorry to say that not only did New London Mayor Michael Passero sell out the other victims of Gov. Ned Lamont’s $200 million remake of State Pier from road salt contractors and longshoremen to local fishermen when he signed a deal with the rich utilities that will profit from the project. But he settled cheaply. We all know that Eversource has legions of Connecticut politicians in its back pocket. I assume the utilities have prepared a T-shirt for Mayor Passero, with a big “E” for Eversource on the front and an “O” for Orsted on the back, and he might be expected to wear it whenever they call a news conference, jerk on his leash and demand a performance, as they are enabled to do by the host community agreement. >click to read< 09:53
Biden administration gives boost to offshore wind. Orstead fails to renew fisheries representative contract
The Biden administration’s announcement this week of a plan to resume an environmental review of a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast and accelerate green-energy development was welcomed by developers and proponents of projects for Long Island. Biden on Jan. 27 signed an executive order,,, Orsted officials declined to comment on the decision by the company not to renew the contract of Julie Evans, a Montauk fishing boat captain who had been a fisheries representative to the company for local fishing issues. She had worked with fishermen in 2020 on fishing-gear loss cases tied to Orsted survey work. One fishermen, Vinny Damm of Montauk, had his claim rejected. Orsted declined to comment on the matter. >click to read< 11:16
Progress expected for Rhode Island’s offshore wind farm plan
Much was made of the Raimondo administration’s selection in 2018 of a proposal for a massive offshore wind farm off the Rhode Island coast that would power as much as a quarter of the state’s electric load. But a Biden presidency is expected to boost renewables overall, and a decision could come in a matter of weeks for the benchmark Vineyard Wind project,,, A favorable ruling on the proposal could break the logjam for Revolution Wind. Orsted and Eversource are gearing up,,, >click to read< 09:21
Charter Signed for First-ever U.S.-flagged Jones Act Compliant SOV
Offshore vessel operator Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) will build and operate the first-ever U.S. flagged Jones Act compliant Service Operations Vessel (SOV), used for offshore wind farm operation and maintenance works. Edison Chouest Offshore, Ørsted, and Eversource announced Thursday the execution of a long-term charter agreement for the provision of the SOV. “The SOV will be engineered, constructed and operated by ECO as an integral part of the operation and maintenance of the Revolution Wind, South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind offshore wind farms in the northeast United States, which are dependent on obtaining the necessary federal permits from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM),” the companies said in a statement. >click to read< 09:27
Dominion debuts first offshore wind farm in U.S. federal waters
Gov. Ralph Northam joined state and local officials, industry representatives and stakeholders Monday for a boat excursion 27 miles off the coast to take an up-close look at the massive turbines. Before embarking on the tour, Northam signed landmark offshore wind legislation during a ceremony in front of the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center in Virginia Beach. He said the legislation will continue to position Virginia as a national leader in offshore wind development as the state builds a new industry with thousands of clean energy jobs. >click to read< 12:09
Key Word -“displaced”: New London wants state to fund new pier for displaced fishermen.
The city is calling on the Connecticut Port Authority to help establish a new home for two commercial fishing businesses being displaced from State Pier. The city says it’s found a spot on its waterfront for a new pier but doesn’t have the money to fund a project. Mayor Michael Passero is calling on the port authority to provide the funding. The fishermen — Montville-based Donna May Fisheries and Waterford-based Out of Our Shell Enterprises — are among the tenants of State Pier being displaced by a $157 million project to redevelop it into a staging and assembly hub for the offshore wind industry. The redevelopment project is a partnership between the Connecticut Port Authority, Ørsted and Eversource. >click to read< 07:56
European Offshore Wind Takes Shape at Providence Innovation Hub
A new glass-and-steel office space is less about the number jobs or the company that will occupy it and more about the industry taking root there. Seven co-working desks at the Wexford Innovation Center on Dyer Street in the Jewelry District will soon be used by Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind. (wonder if Bob gets a desk, too?!) The Danish company is joining seven other wind-related companies already there. And judging by the 200 or so attendees at the March 2 office opening, a nascent industry is on the verge of rapid growth. “This is a brand-new industry and it’s being born right here in the state of Rhode Island. It’s unbelievable,” Gov. Gina Raimondo said. more >click to read< 10:10
Offshore Wind Farm: Clean, Green…Profitable?
In most lifetimes, there are only a few chances to participate in the birth of an industry,,, Ohleth is the senior manager for stakeholder engagement of Orsted, the Danish energy firm that has the contract to build Ocean Wind,,, According to Ohleth, big opportunities are on the way. Not everyone was as sanguine about the proposal. Jeff Kaelin, of Lunds Fisheries, presented a slide that showed the overlap of the project area for Ocean Wind with the path of fishing boats in the region. “The clam guys fish inside of there,” Kaelin stated that the fishing industry would face a disproportionate impact from the wind energy proposal. He described commercial fishing as a $6-billion industry that employs about 30,000 people in a half-dozen different ports, including the Lunds facility, near the Middle Thorofare Bridge, just in from Cape May Inlet. >click to read< 17:27
Its Deadline for Comments Day on South Fork Wind Farm Environmental Report
BOEM, which recently finished its draft environmental review of the South Fork Wind Farm, gave the public a chance to weigh in on the document at three virtual public hearings in mid-February, and is accepting further written public comment through midnight tonight… Meghan Lapp of Seafreeze Ltd. in Narragansett, Rhode Island, “Our vessels will have to fish in the area, which will be impossible if this goes through as planned,” she said, adding that the DEIS “does not contain any cumulative impact analysis” of how the offshore wind industry will affect the fishing industry. Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, based in Montauk, agreed with Ms. Lapp, adding,,, >click to read< 12:05
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