Moving Wind Energy Far Offshore

Moving Wind Energy Far Offshore
New Jersey's Proposed Garden State Offshore Energy Project Seeks Big Capacity with Low Impact
December 15, 2008 at 1:55PM by By Jim Motavalli

Avalon, New Jersey is a southern beach community known as "cooler by a mile," because a quirk of geography makes it a mile further out to sea than its neighbors on the Jersey Cape. If you were to stand on its sandy shore, where in the 1600s whalers put out to sea, and look due east you'd be likely to see a sailboat or two, maybe some distant commercial shipping, but nothing that's likely to send tourists elsewhere. And that's just the way this resort community likes it.

By 2013, there may be a utility-sized, 96-turbine wind farm 20 miles off the Avalon coast, but with any luck the view from shore won't have changed. The project proposed by Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) Renewable Energy, a division of the state's largest utility, and Deepwater Wind will be so far out to sea (the nearest turbine is expected to be 16.2 statute miles from shore) that it is likely to be dimly visibly only on exceptionally clear days.

Wind projects are moving further out to sea, which provides several benefits to getting them approved, funded and producing energy. According to Paul Rosengren, a PSEG spokesperson, "One of the main advantages is that the project will be out of the sight of shore, so any potential impact to property values or tourism is alleviated. There's been some concern locally about having to look at a bunch of windmills -- this will be barely visible on the horizon on a very clear day. We expect the wind quality will be of higher quality that far from shore, and we're also taking the wind turbines away from the migratory patterns of birds."

Another advantage is easy replication. Rosengren says the far-offshore location is well away from shipping lanes, which will make it easier for New Jersey to achieve its recently announced and very ambitious goal of 2,000 to 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity. The Avalon project, operating as Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE), will produce 350 megawatts....

http://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/blogs/cars-transportation/offshore-wind-energy-new-jersey-461208

The previous string of posts were a sampling of one day's news on "wind energy power". Note that it is at the level where action is being taken under current policies that give sporadic policy support for the deployment of the technology. I look forward to seeing the progress that firm, dedicated policy support at the national level achieves. - K