Offshore Wind Wire

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: Massachusetts Court Allows Cape Wind “Super Permit”

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday the state was allowed to overrule community opposition when it granted a “super permit” to the Cape Wind offshore wind project in 2009, the Boston Globe reported.
According to the Globe, if the court decision had gone the other way “the project would probably have been delayed [...]

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: Appeals Filed Over RI Power Deal

The Rhode Island attorney general, an environmental nonprofit and an industry partnership appealed the recent approval of a power purchase agreement for the Deepwater Wind project near Block Island, the Providence Journal reported Tuesday.
Attorney General Patrick Lynch and the Conservation Law Foundation appealed the decision by the Public Utilities Commission to the Supreme Court, [...]

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 [...]

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: Michigan County Rejects Offshore Wind Interest

Commissioners in Oceana County, Michigan, decided yesterday to effectively block a wind project off their shores in Lake Michigan, the Muskegon Chronicle reported.
County commissioners voted 4-2 not to move forward with studies on a 500 megawatt offshore wind farm proposed by Scandia Wind.  Scandia had asked local counties to decide if the visual presence of [...]

MORNING ROUNDUP: Offshore Energy Institute Founder Dies In Maine

Matthew Simmons, the leader and founder of the Offshore Energy Institute, died of an apparent heart attack last weekend, the Kennebec Journal reported.
Simmons founded the think tank in 2007.  The paper quoted Bob West, the institute’s managing director, saying that the organization will “carry his vision forward.”
Maine Panel Reviewing Floating Turbine Submissions
A University of Maine [...]