Bay State Wind has announced a significant change to its proposed layout for a New England offshore wind farm. In response to feedback from fishermen and community members, Bay State Wind has revised its turbine layout pattern. The change demonstrates Bay State Wind’s commitment to being a good neighbor, and it will accommodate historical fishing patterns, and help to provide greater ease of fishing within, and transiting through, the wind farm.
Bay State Wind’s Engineering and Layouts team incorporated as many suggestions as possible from fishermen and local stakeholders, while keeping in mind the need to balance safe navigation, fishing concerns, and clean energy production.
“We are committed to being strong partners with New England’s fishing industry and our neighbors in local communities,” said Thomas Brostrøm, President of Ørsted North America. “As we continue to design sustainable energy for the state, we have taken steps to make the layout of wind turbines more fishing friendly while maintaining energy optimization. We will continue to work with agencies, stakeholders, and other developers towards a clean energy future.”
The new plan realigns the wind turbine layout so that the turbines are located in rows running east to west, the preferred orientation for fishing. The updated layout also includes an average of one nautical mile between turbine rows to create distinct fishing corridors while continuing to optimize wind utilization and energy production.
“With local roots that go back more than 100 years, we’re proud to serve New England and understand the importance of the fishing industry to ports in the region,” said Mike Auseré, Vice President of Business Development at Eversource. “We’re happy to collaborate with a company like Ørsted that shares our commitment to being responsive to the needs of local communities.”
Feedback from the local fishing community indicated that the irregular pattern of the previous plan could make fishing in and transiting through the wind farm area difficult, especially in bad weather or while towing or setting gear.
Bay State Wind is a partnership between Ørsted, a developer of offshore wind, and Eversource, a New England electric transmission company. The partners will submit a construction and operations plan to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in early 2019, which will include the updated turbine layout.
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