Offshore Wind Wire

MORNING ROUNDUP: Ocean Energy Institute Seeks Direction

Still reeling from the death of founder and leader Matthew Simmons, staff and board members at the Ocean Energy Institute are debating the organization’s mission and path forward, the Portland Press Herald reported Sunday.
The Maine-based Institute could continue as a non profit research group, join with another organization or pursue a private, for-profit [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Wind Measurement Company Expands Manufacturing

Massachusetts-based Second Wind Inc. is growing its manufacturing operations for wind measuring equipment, Mass High Tech reported yesterday.
The company is making a strong push in sodar technology systems and CEO Larry Letteney told Mass High Tech that Second Wind now has 65 percent of the market for remote sensing technology for wind.  Last month, [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: NJ Offshore Push Focused on Former BP Facility

Offshore wind legislation signed recently by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is focused on redeveloping a former BP oil facility in South Jersey, the Times of Trenton reported today.
“The Paulsboro Marine Terminal, a port on the Delaware River the state has struggled to revitalize, is considered an ideal site for manufacturing wind turbines,” the paper [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Daewoo Considering North American Wind Farm

Daewoo Shipbuilding — the giant South Korean corporation that is currently developing its own offshore wind turbine — is considering developing a wind farm in North America, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
The company aims to generate 30 percent of its sales from wind power by 2020, according to the report.
“It’s a very ambitious target and it won’t [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Cape Wind Will Cost More Than $2.5 Billion

The Cape Wind offshore wind project will cost more than $2.5 billion to build, not including the cost of financing, the Boston Globe reported over the weekend.

The Globe reported on an analysis of the Cape Wind power purchase agreement.  That analysis, by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, was submitted to state regulators who [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Duke Energy Drops NC Offshore Wind Demonstration

Duke Energy announced yesterday that it is abandoning a project to install several demonstration wind turbines off the North Carolina coast, the Associated Press reported.
The company had planned to develop the three-turbine project in conjunction with the University of North Carolina but ultimately decided the cost was too high and the potential environmental impact was [...]

Offshore Wind Coalition Will Focus on Streamlined Federal Permitting

By Peter Brennan
The Offshore Wind Development Coalition – a newly minted advocacy group – will focus initially on streamlining federal regulations, the leader of the organization said last week in an interview with Offshore Wind Wire.
The group, also known as OffshoreWindDC, is led by former Deepwater Wind executive Jim Lanard.  Referring to the recently approved [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: NJ Governor to Sign Offshore Wind Bill

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to sign the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act today, according to a report in the Star-Ledger Wednesday.
The bill calls for $100 million in tax credits for offshore wind companies and will eventually require that a percentage of electricity sold in New Jersey come from offshore wind [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Cape Wind Contract Survives External Challenge

Massachusetts regulators directed a local utility to rebid three land-based wind contracts but exempted Cape Wind from the decision, the Boston Globe reported.
The Public Utilities Commission said that NStar must allow out-of-state electricity generators to compete for three contracts but Cape Wind — which has a contract with National Grid — was excluded because that [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: UMaine Studies Birds and Bats for Offshore Test Site

The University of Maine is working with the New Jersey Audubon Society to study birds and bats near the school’s Deepwater Offshore Wind Test Site, the DeepCWind Consortium reported on its website last week.
The New Jersey group brought a mobile marine radar unit to Monhegan Island and will study flight patterns through the end [...]