Category Archives: Offshore

by J/Boats 2 Jul 05:06 PDT

Over the past three years, as J/121 teams continue to learn how to sail their boats faster and more efficiently, those efforts are not going unnoticed by the world's sailing and racing cognoscenti.

Designed to be an offshore racing machine, the J/121 has not only been competitive on "closed-course" round-the-buoys race tracks, but continues to demonstrate its design pedigree by the J/Design team in major offshore long-distance events.

Just this past month, here are a number of highlights from around the world:

Bill Wiggins and Ashley Maltempo's WINGS won ORC D Class on mostly windward-leeward closed courses, notably winning the Round Island Race quite handily. Furthermore, they beat one of the winningest J/122 teams of all time, Robin Team's Teamwork!

Joe Brito's Incognito won PHRF Performance Spinnaker Class sailing on random-leg point-to-point courses.

Four different boats, four different racing and crew configurations. If you want a 40+ footer that can do it all, look no further.

What's up for the future?

Watch for these three events to set the bar even higher and raise the standard for J/121 sailors. Three iconic offshore events will be taking place soon. All are famous in their own rights for the challenges they represent to each team and are genuine tests of crew work, seamanship, boatspeed, and navigational sailing efficiency. Can your team maintain 95% target boatspeed efficiency 24 hours per day? Some can, no question. Many cannot.

Rolex Fastnet Race:

The grandaddy of the European offshore sailing community is the Rolex Fastnet Race. The 2021 addition will be the first time it starts off Cowes, England, rounds Fastnet Rock, crosses the somewhat hazardous English Channel (and many ships, bit.ly/3jxuJVv) and finishes in Cherbourg, France, making for a longer 695.0nm course. And, with over 450 entries, the largest long-distant offshore racing event around the world-- ever!

Two J/121's will be sailing the Fastnet Race, O'Donnell's DARKWOOD will be joined by the Swedish doublehanded team on Jolene sailed by Fredrik Rydin and John Tuvsledt. In both cases, talented offshore teams that know their way around a race track.

Transpac Race:

Out West, there are two 121's sailing the famous 2,225.0nm Transpac Race, Scott Campbell's RIVA from Portland, Oregon and Scott Grealish's Blue Flash from Portland, OR as well. In the 2019 edition, Grealish's Blue Flash team handily won class and, due to their earlier very light airs start versus other classes starting in breeze a few days later, they missed out on overall honors. With two fast, legendary J/125s up against them in the class above, it will be an amazing test, two J/121's vs. two J/125's. May the best team win.

Chicago to Mackinac Race:

At 295.0nm, it may not seem very far, a 1-day race for big boats, and up to 3-days for smaller boats, depending on conditions. Nevertheless, it consistently proves to be one of the most challenging offshore races in the world. Even the infamous, irascible Ted Turner admitted he got his proverbial butt kicked by the Mac Race sailing his red-hulled 12-meter American Eagle one year (as anyone knows, Turner doesn't admit defeat often).

The predominant features are fast-moving, very powerful weather fronts that can sweep across the race track and are infamous for producing hurricane force winds, hail, and blinding tropical downpours..plus dense fog! It's always a roll of the dice. Champagne sailing in strong southerlies planing all day long to the infamous Pink Pony Bar, or complete and utter hell. You gotta love that race! Sailing will be Bob Christoph's J/121 LOKI with a talented crew from the USA and New Zealand.

Find out more about the J/121 offshore speedster at http://www.jcomposites.eu/j-121-sport-sailboat

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J/121's setting the pace - Competitive on round-the-buoys race tracks and offshore - Sail World

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) Virginia Beach Mayor Bobby Dyers commission for an $8 billion windfarm will include several international partners.

The $8 billion windfarm, Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, is slated to have up to 180 turbines that will generate 2,640 megawatts of energy, enough to power up to 660,000 homes.

The commission, chaired by Vice Mayor Jim Wood, will include a broad cross-section of stakeholders, including representatives from Dominion Energy, Virginia Beach, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Tidewater Community College, and more.

Currently, Dominion Energy has constructed two test turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach.

Vice Mayor Wood says the commission was designed to bring together a diverse group of people who represent the areas needed to maximize the economic, infrastructure and job creation potential of this project.

We are beginning with an event in August that will bring 40 European supply chain manufacturing companies here to explore ways they can be a part of this effort, said Wood.

The commission includes:

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Virginia Beachs offshore wind commission to include international partners - WAVY.com

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities this week awarded two new contracts to offshore wind companies to construct the next phase of a planned massive wind farm out in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of South Jersey.

Nevertheless, questions remain about the financial impact of the project on ratepayers, and how hundreds of giant wind turbines will affect tourism along the shore and impact schools of fish and whales out in the ocean.

The group Save our Shoreline has collected more than 10,000 signatures opposing the states wind farm plan, in part because it is expected to increase the cost of electricity in the near term, but no one is sure by how much.

When BPU President Joe Fiordaliso was asked what kind of an increase is anticipated for the average Jersey home or business, and how long the higher rates would be in effect once the wind farm project was constructed in 2035, he said clean energy costs money, theres no getting around it, however as time goes on those costs diminish.

He said an example of this is in the solar industry, where costs are half of what they were 14 years ago.

When we look at the clean energy industry we also have to look at the economic benefits that were getting, the thousands of jobs that are being created,"Fiordaliso said.

He noted we should take into account the infusion of billions of dollars into the New Jersey economy from this kind of undertaking.

We will be the supply chain for the entire east coast as far as off shore wind is concerned, he said. So you can just imagine the amount of money, the amount of economic enhancement thats going to occur.

Fiordaliso said when were talking about a shift to clean energy we need to consider up-front cost but also the economic benefit that will follow.

When asked about concerns that the electromagnetic field created by the wind farm may disrupt the migration of fluke and other fish and cause problems for whales that rely on sonar to navigate the seas, he said the BPU is working with our friends in Europe.

Theyve done a lot of studies and [that] has not been a factor that we know of as of now," he said. We have been working very closely with the Department of Environmental Protection to protect not only our recreational fisheries, but also our industrial fisheries.

He said fishing is an important economic tool in the state.

He said fears about tiny specks of wind turbines on the horizon negatively impacting tourism are unfounded and he noted efforts are also underway to work with shipping lines to make sure their access to the Port of New York and New Jersey is not negatively impacted by the wind farm.

Were working with a whole bunch of industries to ensure the fact that to the best of our ability were creating, not destroying, Fiordaliso said.

You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com

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NJ offshore wind farms: Pros and cons - New Jersey 101.5 FM

RWE Renewables, through its Polish subsidiary Baltic Trade & Invest Sp. z o.o., has signed Letters of Intent (LoI) with three Polish companies from the maritime sector, which will support the construction of the FEW Baltic II 350 MW offshore wind project in Poland.

RWE has entered into cooperation with LOTOS Petrobaltic S.A., the Polish Ocean Lines S.A. (PLO), as well as with the Port of Gdynia Authority S.A.

The agreement with LOTOS focuses on the technical exchange of experiences in the field of geotechnical surveys, installation and service vessels as well as subsea inspection and services, and potential use for RWEs offshore projects in Poland.

The collaboration with PLO puts the focus on service fleet capabilities, CO2 reduction and the training of crews in the area of offshore wind.

With the Port of Gdynia Authority, RWE plans to provide its experience and knowledge as an offshore wind developer across all technical areas to support the planning of an offshore terminal.

Back in 2019, RWE Renewablesboughta pipeline of up to four offshore wind projects in Poland with a total generation capacity of more than 1.5 GW. The 350 MW FEW Baltic II is one of those projects.

Earlier this year, RWE signed the Grid Connection Agreement with Polands transmission system operator PSE for the wind farm and this April the Polish Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) awarded the project with a Contract for Difference.

The wind farm is located some 50 kilometres offshore, on the north side of the Slupsk Bank in the Baltic Sea. It covers an area of around 41 square kilometres with water depths ranging between 30 and 50 metres.

FEW Baltic II could be operational as early as 2025.

More:

RWE Assembling Offshore Wind Supply Chain Team in Poland - Offshore WIND

Equinor's expected 4% to 8% internal rate of return on offshore wind projects in developed markets is reasonable, given strong competition and relatively few projects at present, according to a Wood Mackenzie analyst.

Shimeng Yang, senior analyst at the consultancy, agrees that the results of the UK's Crown Estate Leasing Round 4 showed that competition is fierce, especially with the entry of European oil majors into the sector.

Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Equinor and Eni have renewables capacity targets of at least 125 gigawatts before 2030, with growth ambitions increasing almost by the week.

They have ambitious targets. However, many European countries have plans for significant amounts of offshore wind, Yang said, citing Poland's target of 6GW, Germany's target of 20GW, the UK's 40GW and Denmark's proposed 10GW "energy island".

WoodMac estimates annual spending on offshore wind by European oil majors before project financing will increase to around $8 billion per year in 2025 more than 18 times 2020 levels.

Yang described this as a game-changer for the sector.

WoodMac said big oil companies are better placed to pursue opportunities on a worldwide scale than existing, regionally focused players.

A recent report from the company said the European majors already hold some of the most diversified offshore wind portfolios.

As well as established wind markets like the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, theyre entering committed markets like the US, where projects have won government support but aren't yet operational, it said.

Equinor and Shell have also established positions in emerging and pre-emerging markets, with other majors likely to follow.

The report does not mention credit rating, but a credit rating of AA- (S&P) for Shell and Equinor could give them an advantage in raising capital through project financing over Danish renewables company Orsted, which has a BBB+ rating.

In addition, current crude prices have given the oil and gas majors a huge cash flow advantage.

According to WoodMac, within Europe, the Black Sea is generating much interest for offshore wind developers.

Further afield, China is a huge potential market that remains hard to access for Western companies but is becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

Equinor has signed a partnership to try and get through the door, and this could be a viable route for other European majors, since Chinese players also want to break out. In the long term, some of the most important markets for the majors are probably not even on the map yet, WoodMac said.

Continued here:

WoodMac remains bullish on offshore wind growth potential - Upstream Online

Greece-based industrial conglomerate MYTILINEOS has signed an agreement with Copenhagen Infrastructrure Partners (CIP) to jointly develop wind farms offshore Greece.

MYTILINEOS entered the agreement through its Power & Gas Business Unit Protergia, and CIP on behalf of its fund CI New Markets Fund I, for a joint cooperation (CIP 60 per cent / MYTILINEOS 40 per cent) on the development of offshore wind projects in Greece.

Both companies will contribute to this cooperation, in order to identify appropriate sites and co-develop and co-invest in offshore wind projects, by combining resources and expertise, MYTILINEOS said.

The principal developer for all the projects to be developed under the CIP-MYTILINEOS cooperation is Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP).

COP works closely with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and has been leading the development of numerous offshore wind projects in Germany, UK, Taiwan, USA, Australia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere since 2015.

We are proud to collaborate with world leaders in offshore wind projects and we are looking forward to a fruitful cooperation that will enhance both the energy strategy of MYTILINEOS and Greeces energy transition, General Manager of the Power & Gas Business Unit at MYTILINEOS, Dinos Benroubi, said.

Offshore wind is expected to be the largest source of electricity in the European Union by 2040. In order for Greece to achieve its national targets, there is an obvious need for a timely and effective legal and regulatory framework, MYTILINEOS said.

CIP is pleased to join forces with MYTILINEOS exploring a new offshore wind market. It will be a floating offshore wind dominated market, and we look forward to bring our global experience and working with MYTILINEOS and local partners to develop good projects in Greece, CIP Partner Michael Hannibal, said.

MYTILINEOS is active in Metallurgy, Power & Gas, Renewables & Storage and Sustainable Engineering Solutions. Established in Greece in 1990, the company is listed on the Athens Exchange, has a consolidated turnover of EUR 1.9 billion and employs directly or indirectly more than 3,850 people in Greece and abroad.

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Greek Conglomerate and CIP to Jointly Develop Wind Farms Offshore Greece - Offshore WIND

The Polish Energy Regulatory Office has awarded Ocean Winds, a 50-50 joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, with a Contract for Difference (CfD) for its 369.5 MW B&C-Wind offshore wind farm.

The project has secured the CfD at a strike price of PLN 319.60 per MWh (EUR 71.0/MWh).

The offshore wind farm site is located in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Polands sector of the Baltic Sea, approximately 23 kilometres offshore, and covers an area of 90 square kilometres in water depths ranging between 30 to 60 metres.

Obtaining the CfD is a key milestone for the project, bringing it closer to the final investment decision (FID), according to the developer.

With this CfD award we reach an important milestone in the development of B&C Wind Project which will even accelerate now towards reaching the Final Investment Decision and start of construction, said Grzegorz Gorski, COO of Ocean Winds and CEO of OW Polska.

We have been already collaborating with numerous Polish suppliers in our projects in construction the UK, Belgium and Portugal and will be happy to work with them (and many more!) in their home country. This is also just the first step for OW in Poland, with Polish offshore wind program accelerating, we have the ambition, together with Polish partners, to develop, build and operate many more projects, Gorski said.

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Ocean Winds Awarded CfD for 370 MW Offshore Wind Farm in Poland - Offshore WIND

6/30/2021

Floating offshore wind installation

Green infrastructure developer Cerulean Winds has named NOV as the first of its delivery partners for the fabrication of its proposed integrated 200-turbine floating wind and hydrogen development off the coast of Scotland.

The arrangement would establish NOV as the exclusive provider of floating and mooring systems in support of the venture, which would have the capacity to accelerate the decarbonization of oil and gas assets in the UKCS by more than halving the 18 million tons of CO2 they currently produce by 2025.

NOV, one of the largest providers of marine equipment and wind vessel designs in the world, has more than 20 years of experience in the offshore wind sector and unrivalled expertise in the installation and maintenance of floating structures in the energy space. Its participation as a delivery partner confirms the viability of Cerulean Winds trailblazing proposal.

Cerulean Winds is led by Dan Jackson and Mark Dixon, who have more than 25 years experience working together on large-scale offshore infrastructure developments in the oil and gas industry.

We are very pleased to announce NOVs involvement with the project, said Mr. Dixon. As the largest and most qualified provider of marine equipment and wind vessel designs working in this space, the experience and knowledge they will bring to a project of this magnitude is second to none. Having them on board brings the scheme a step closer to reality.

We have a number of Tier 1 delivery stakeholders signed up. We cant disclose who they are at this stage, but they are some of the largest providers in the world, with the scale and capacity to deliver and we look forward to making further announcements over the coming months.

Joe Rovig, President of NOV Rig Technologies, added, We are very excited to partner with Cerulean on this groundbreaking proposal, which will leverage NOVs core competencies as well as our UK and European infrastructure and personnel in a key energy transition project, which will drive major progress in the goal of decarbonizing the Offshore UK sector. NOV is eager to demonstrate our abilities as one of the key partners and household names in the global energy transition, just as it has been for decades in the traditional oil and gas industry.

Targets set out in the recently published North Sea Transition Deal call for a reduction in offshore emissions by 10% by 2025 and 25% by 2027. To achieve that, preparatory work must begin now if those targets are to be met. Failure to do so undermines the objectives of the Deal.

If it gets the go-ahead, the 10 billion Cerulean Winds project has the capacity to generate enough power to electrify the majority of assets in the UKCS to meet and exceed those targets within the timescale.

However, the timing involved in gaining approvals for the project is critical. Cerulean Winds has submitted a formal request to Marine Scotland for seabed leases, and these must be granted by Q3 in 2021 to target financial close in Q1 2022 and to begin construction soon after so that the infrastructure is in place by 2024-2026.

To support this, the venture is calling on the Scottish and UK governments to make an exceptional case to deliver an extraordinary outcome for the economy and the environment.

The UK has set world leading targets to progress energy transition, but to achieve them there must be a greater sense of urgency and joined up thinking, said Mr. Jackson. If assets dont reduce their CO2 emissions by the mid-2020s, increased emissions penalties through carbon taxes will see many North Sea fields become uneconomical and move them towards decommissioning by the end of the decade at the cost of thousands of jobs.

That would seriously compromise the UK oil and gas industrys role in homegrown energy security. It must remain a vital element in the transition journey for decades to come, but emissions have to be cut significantly to make the production greener.

This project will accelerate that process enabling assets to not only cut their emissions in line with targets but to greatly exceed them. There are no other proposals currently in the pipeline with the scale and capacity to deliver that result, but to achieve it, the process must begin now, which is why a favourable decision on seabed leases by Q3 2021 is essential.

The proposed development involves:

Cerulean has undertaken the necessary infrastructure planning for the scheme to ensure the required level of project readiness, targeting financial close in Q1 2022. The company is being advised by Socit Gnrale, one of the leading European financial services groups, and Piper Sandler, corporate finance advisors to the energy industry.

More here:

NOV tapped to deliver flotation and mooring systems for windfarm offshore Scotland - WorldOil

ByLisa Ercolano

Energy experts generally agree: Part of the answer to supplying the U.S. with clean, renewable, and abundant energy is just offshore, blowin' in the wind.

Energy generated by wind turbines floating in the ocean off both U.S. coasts and the Great Lakes has the potential to meet 90% of the country's demand for electricity by 2050, experts say, and offshore wind farms are capable of yielding far more additional energy than their land-based counterparts.

But despite their potential, only seven turbines currently whirl off U.S. coastal waters, though President Joe Biden recently approved a 62-turbine wind farm installation to be placed 15 miles from Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. (Compare that number to the 65,000 land-based wind turbines planted in fields and on hillsides across 43 states.)

One impediment to optimizing the potential impact of offshore wind farms is that so little is known about how interactions between the motions of the floating wind turbines and waves affect power output, says Dennice Gayme, a wind-energy expert and mechanical engineer at Johns Hopkins University's Ralph S. O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute.

Ben Schafer

Director, Ralph S. O'Connor Sustainable Energy Institute

"The problem is that the factors influencing offshore wind power are far more complex than those on land, and that gaining that additional knowledge now will avoid costly changes or underperforming wind farms later. These farms take years to build, so we need to do the work now to enable offshore wind to achieve its full potential in contributing to a more sustainable energy system," she said.

Gayme and Charles Meneveau, a professor in Mechanical Engineering, are teaming up with Ral B. Cal, a professor at Portland State University, on a National Science Foundation-funded project aimed at not only understanding the complex interplay between turbines, wind, and water in offshore wind farms, but also developing a set of simple models and tools that can ensure that these farms are designed and operated to ensure maximum energy efficiency and output.

"When you get the fundamentals rightthe fluid mechanics, the controlsuddenly, you are not flying blind, and you can create solutions with real efficiency: the kind of solutions we need to accelerate our nation's energy transformation," said Ben Schafer, director of ROSEI and a professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins. "Innovations such as these, that enable our energy transformation, are at the heart of our institute's mission."

The collaboration with Portland State University will couple the simulation and modeling efforts with experimental studies within a unique facility at Portland State that merges a wind tunnel and wave tank to conduct scaled controlled experiments. The partnership will enable insights from these state-of-the art experiments to be combined with high-fidelity computer simulations using JHU-developed software to improve understanding of the relationship between incoming streams of air, waves that are generated, and floating turbines. Together this work will allow the researchers to carefully tease apart these dynamics, measuring power outputs under different conditions and identifying which conditions yield greater power production.

"Our goal is to better understand all of the system interactions and then exploit this knowledge to develop simple models/tools that designers can use in practice. Understanding these effects a priori provides the ability to 'get it right' from the beginning, providing a huge positive impact on this country's efforts toward clean, sustainable energy," Gayme said.

Team members also view this project as an opportunity to train graduate students in the interdisciplinary tools of wind energy science and to help high school students understand how wind energy benefits society by reducing greenhouse gases and producing clean, sustainable energy. The researchers will host Baltimore-area high school students for summer research experiences, and Gayme and Meneveau will serve as guest lecturers through Johns Hopkins University's Engineering Innovation, a pre-college program that attracts talented high school students from around the world. They will also work with Cal and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry on science outreach curriculum centered on the project topics.

"Wind energy provides a unique opportunity for society; however, the scale up that is needed to make a tangible impact in climate change related issues is enormous. Projects like this one help us achieve this scale intelligently and efficiently and are desperately needed. Quest for efficiency at all scales is aligned with the larger mission of our new institute. ROSEI researchers are interested in, and working on, this journey at many levels," Schafer said.

Link:

Trying to catch the wind: Research project aims to make offshore wind farms more efficient, powerful - The Hub at Johns Hopkins

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 worlds 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 Jerseys Endangered and Non-Game Species Program, Niles started the Delaware Bay Shorebird Project, now in its 25th year of monitoring the migration. Hes 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.

Plans for 850-foot tall turbines might seem to present deadly barriers to the birds. But after years of tagging birds with ultra-lightweight tracking devices, researchers think the red knots over the ocean typically climb to cruising altitudes around 5,000 feet, said Niles.

The best fuel for that ascent is horseshoe crab eggs, tiny blue-green pellets that crabs lay on bay beach sands. In a few days voraciously feeding red knots can boost their body weight from 130 grams about 4.5 ounces up to 240 grams or 8.4 ounces, mostly new fat reserves to propel them onward.

We model what the birds do while theyre migrating, based on laborious downloading and interpretation of data from tracking transmitters, said Niles. Like human airliner pilots, in flight the birds are assessing the strength and direction of the wind, seeking the best airflow to speed their journey, said Niles.

The supply of crab eggs is critical to their success. The horseshoe crab bait business expanded in the 1990s to supply commercial eel and whelk trap fisheries. Shorebird counts on Delaware Bay beaches that were 90,000 in the late 1980s plummeted, and by the early 2000s Niles and environmental advocates convinced state wildlife agencies and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to tighten catch limits.

Biologists who had measured up to 50,000 crab eggs per square yard of bay beaches saw those numbers drop to 5,000 before new regulations were set. The bird counts climbed back to around 30,000 in recent years, before dropping to 17,000 and then a new low point this spring of 6,880.

The 2020 migration season was affected by two early tropical storms on the East Coast in May that year, and persistent northerly winds this spring may have been a factor against the shorebirds, said Niles.

This year the (horseshoe crab) spawn was on time, and I think it was good, said Niles. So I think were looking at a real decline in the total numbers of the red knot population, he said.

That makes the Atlantic Shores project even more timely.

It puts even greater value to the study, said Niles. New satellite tags attached to red knots will also give us really important conservation information, with precise location data that will help U.S. and Canadian wildlife agencies map out habitat areas that should be saved for the birds, he said.

Paul Phifer, the permitting manager at Atlantic Shores, is familiar with shorebird conservation efforts from his time with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Northeast states.

We got a petition to list the red knot (as an endangered species) years ago. We ultimately listed red knots as a threatened species in 2015, said Phifer.

In his position now with the wind developers, Phifer talked to his old colleagues in the wildlife profession and realized the possibilities for a first study of wind power and shorebird migration.

I knew Larry from working with him for all these years, said Phifer. Whats great now is the satellite tags are so advanced, and the birds are able to carry them.

The limited data we got last year shows they go really high while migrating between South America, the U.S. East Coast and Canada, said Phifer. Niles will be in Brazil too to track one southern leg of the migration.

Were talking about a substantial long-term project, said Phifer. Atlantic Shores is paying for all of the study costs $95,000 last year and a projected $350,000 all told, with technical support from the Fish and Wildlife Service and New Jersey Audubon Society.

The shorebird study has not been a requirement of permitting from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. But Phifer says it is a wise long-term look at potential environmental impacts for the young U.S. offshore wind industry.

Environmental studies and precautions to avert bad effects on wildlife from developing offshore wind projects are critical, said Eric Stiles, executive director of the New Jersey Audubon Society.

At the same time, if we dont move ahead responsibly with offshore wind, a lot of these species are doomed from climate change, he said.

Migratory flyways and potential bird losses from turbine rotor blades were studied when the Atlantic County Utilities Authority planned its five onshore turbines at the Atlantic City, N.J., sewage treatment plant. New Jersey Audubon experts assisted with that project, using modified small-boat radar to plot how birds passed near the site.

That three-year study counted 30 birds killed during that time, out of thousands onsite during those years, according to the agency in a 2015 report.

Since then, studies with Doppler radar have revealed more information about directions, altitudes and abundance of birds on the move, said Stiles.

With the Atlantic Shores study, were really hoping it will set a precedent for having the industry move forward with government and academic partnerships, said Stiles.

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Offshore wind developers fund shorebird study - National Fisherman