One of the agenda topics in SCAA’s October 2021 meeting with BSEE was the ramping up of offshore wind farms in the United States, starting on the East Coast New England/ Mid-Atlantic regions followed by the Gulf of Mexico. BOEM and BSEE are major regulatory players in the growing offshore wind sector, which has a 30GW administration target by 2030. What was most interesting to SCAA members is that BSEE is requiring offshore wind installations to have Oil Spill Response plans requiring OSROs under contract or other approved agreements.
Offshore wind renewable energy will be addressed at SCAA’s April 2022 Annual Meeting and Conference in Savannah, GA. Between now and then, please chime in with SCAA News Blog article or questions/ comments to John Allen, SCAA Outreach Director, at jallen@scaa-spill.org; 516-818-0250.
BOEM is holding a wind auction February 23 for more than 480,000 acres offshore New York and New Jersey, in the area known as the New York Bight. BOEM is also preparing a draft environmental assessment (EA) to consider the impacts of potential offshore wind leasing in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The area that will be reviewed in the EA includes almost 30 million acres just west of the Mississippi River to the Texas/Mexican border.
Several SCAA member companies are already engaged in plan writing, development of shore supply bases and providing support vessels during offshore site development assessment. Individual wind generators contain lubricating and dielectric oil. Underwater electric cable runs encased in dielectric oil are connected to gathering stations that are connected to shore facilities. There can be a considerable amount of lube and dielectric oils in an offshore wind farm power generating system contained in the turbines and underwater electric transmission cables from multiple turbines to gathering station(s) and from gathering stations to the power station on the land.
Other oil spill risks during installation activity and follow-on operations and maintenance activities are the support vessels involved.
For example, SCAA member, Northstar Marine, has been providing support vessels, liftboats and barges for geophysical surveys, drilling and coring, meteorological buoys and spars, conduit cable laying, marine mammal surveys, and air bubble curtain noise mitigation in support of the offshore wind sector.
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| Surface Operations Vessel (OSV) COMMANDER owned by Northstar Marine |
Service operation vessels (SOV), Construction Support Vessels (CSV/CSOV), Wind Turbine Installation Vessels (WTIV) and other Installation Support Vessels (ISV) are reliable Walk-To-Work platforms for wind farm support operations.
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| Shimizu Corp.’s wind turbine installation vessel |
SOVs are fuel-efficient DP-enabled vessels that loiter & operate as in-field accommodations for workers and platform assist for wind turbine servicing and repair work. An SOV can provide accommodations for 40+ personnel.
Feeder Support Vessels (FSV) are built and designed to carry deck cargo such as turbines and blades to the installation vessel and can provide accommodations for 50+ personnel.
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| Photo courtesy of Dong Fang Offshore construction and flex lay vessel Polar Onyx |
Field Development Vessels (FDV) are designed to lay cables connecting offshore wind structures within the field and cables connecting those structures to the shore, which deliver the electrical energy from the field to the shore.
Wind Turbine Installation Vessels (WTIV) provide installation and construction services. While operating in shallow water, WTIVs can self-elevate, as seen in the picture. In deeper water, WTIVs will serve as floating heavy-lift vessels. WTIVs can have accommodations to house 50+ personnel and are equipped with a cargo deck designed to carry turbines, blades, and equipment.
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| Dominion’s Charybdis vessel, currently under construction. Image courtesy of Dominion. |
Liftboats are used as SOVs and FSVs in wind farms closer to shore and in shallower waters, such as the Block Island Wind Farm.
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NOAA: Interagency collaboration for offshore wind energy:
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management signed an interagency memorandum in support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s offshore wind energy goals. The memorandum aims to help leverage the responsibilities, expertise, and relationships of both NOAA and BOEM in support of the goal by outlining areas of cooperation, and creating a framework to develop future, more detailed agreements related to specific program areas.
See article: NOAA and BOEM announce interagency collaboration to advance offshore wind energy
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