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Dive Brief:

Deepwater Wind has proposed a 90 MW wind farm, 30 miles southeast of Montauk, N.Y., and sufficiently offshore to be beyond the horizon and out of sight, North American Windpower reports. 

Combing 15 turbines and two battery systems, the Deepwater ONE-South Fork project would be the first phase of a regional offshore wind farm, with all transmission cables buried below existing roads and under shoreline features.

Two lithium ion batteries would be put in place at separate locations, designed and installed by General Electric.

Dive Insight:

As New York continues to work on modernizing its grid and adding more renewable energy, utilities are seeking innovative projects involving renewable energy and storage. PSEG-Long Island issued a request for new resources, and Deepwater Wind's proposal is designed to defer the cost of additional power facilities.

“Governor Cuomo has made New York a leader in clean energy. Our new solution supports his goals by combining advanced energy storage technology and renewable energy from offshore wind to deliver clean, cost-effective energy exactly when and where it’s most needed,” Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said in a statement. “Not only will the project reduce air pollution emissions on Long Island, but it’ll also

defer the need to build costly new power plants and transmission systems on the South Fork.”

The company said its combination of renewable generation with energy storage provides a cost-effective solution to two challenges in the area: It will bring clean energy directly to Long Island Power Authority's (LIPA) existing substation in East Hampton, while also helping to satisfy clean energy goals in the region.

The project would address LIPA's commitment to procure 280 MW of on-island renewable capacity, as well as the town of East Hampton’s Board mandate to achieve 100% renewable energy. It would also help the state reach a goal to use 50% renewable power by 2030.

Construction could begin in 2019, with the project beginning to produce power in 2022.

“Our partnership with Deepwater Wind pairs proven, reliable advanced battery energy storage solutions with offshore wind energy from one of the country’s leading wind developers,” said Pratima Rangarajan, general manager of storage for Current, a GE subsidiary. “Together, this solution will help the South Fork meet its energy needs in an affordable and sustainable way.”

Since taking over the LIPA grid, PSEG has been working to modernize electric operations in the region. Last year, the company filed its Utility 2.0 Plan, a sketch of how the it expects to transition into a new era of resources. PSEG-Long Island's solar program has been growing for the last decade, adding roughly 2,000 customers annually.

Offshore wind farm developer Deepwater Wind is proposing a 15-turbine project 30 miles east of Montauk to provide renewable energy for the South Fork. The wind farm would fulfill East Hampton Town’s pledge to get 100% of its electricity from renewable sources, and then some, while also moving the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) closer to its goal of adding 280 megawatts of renewable energy to its grid.

Dubbed Deepwater ONE, the 90-megawatt wind farm could power 50,000 homes, according to Deepwater Wind, which says construction could start as early as 2019, with completion by 2022.

“We hope that LIPA, PSEG and the state of New York take this proposal seriously,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell says.

Deepwater Wind won a 30-year lease of 256 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean on the Outer Continental Shelf in 2013. The site has the potential for 200 wind turbines—this first phase to serve the South Fork would represent just 7.5% of the capacity. Later phases could serve New England and more of Long Island.

“We think it’s one of the best areas to build offshore wind in the world,” says Clint Plummer, the vice president of development at Deepwater Wind. He points to the area’s proximity to regions that are seeking new sources of energy, while being far enough away from the coast that the turbines will not be visible from land.

The water is also relatively shallow, he notes. The depth is between 90 and 120 feet, while the turbines will stand 600 feet tall from the water’s surface. Comparatively, he says the Gulf of Mexico—where wind farms have also been pitched—is several thousand feet in depth.

Deepwater Wind is responsible for the United States’ first offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm, which is presently under construction and expected to be operational by this time next year. Deepwater ONE will take advantage of the lessons learned from the Block Island Wind Farm, and a larger scale, to deliver electricity at a more competitive rate, Plummer says.

Compared to building new fossil fuel or solar projects on Long Island, Deepwater ONE would delivery electricity for approximately the same cost, he adds.

Transmission cables would be buried deep below roads and there would be no new overhead cables or poles required to deliver the energy to the LIPA substation in East Hampton and Deepwater Wind’s proposed battery energy storage facilities in Montauk and Wainscott.

“The details are going to have to be worked out and subject to public participation,” Cantwell says. “The utilities will all be underground, which is a major plus, but the locations of the storage facilities will be subject to a local site planning process and public participation.”

The storage facilities—on Industrial Road in Montauk and at the Wainscott Commercial Center—would use General Electric lithium-ion battery technology. Forecasted to be operational by 2018, the facilities could store 15 megawatts of energy between them.

East Hampton Patch

In case you missed it, here’s a story that appeared earlier this week in East Hampton Patch:

Deepwater Wind, an offshore wind developer based in Rhode Island, recently announced a proposal for a new approach to meet the growing energy need on the South Fork with a new offshore wind farm and two new battery energy storage systems.In response to PSEG-Long Island’s request for new local energy resources serving the South Fork, Deepwater Wind is proposing to supply capacity and renewable energy from the 90 megawatt, 15-turbine Deepwater ONE - South Fork project.

“Governor Cuomo has made New York a leader in clean energy. Our new solution supports his goals by combining advanced energy storage technology and renewable energy from offshore wind to deliver clean, cost-effective energy exactly when and where it’s most needed,” Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said. “Not only will the project reduce air pollution emissions on Long Island, but it’ll also defer the need to build costly new power plants and transmission systems on the South Fork.”

This will be the first phase of a regional offshore wind farm the company is developing roughly 30 miles southeast of Montauk, far enough away to be over the horizon.All transmission cables will be buried deep below existing roads and under shoreline features, with no overhead cables or poles.

To complement the wind farm, the company is also proposing building two new battery energy storage facilities – one in Montauk and the other in Wainscott.

The facilities will consist of lithium-ion battery technology, which will be designed and installed by General Electric, and will be located on industrially zoned sites on Industrial Road in Montauk and at the Wainscott Commercial Center, storing a combined 15 megawatts of energy.

The facilities will be operational by 2018.

The unique combination of renewable generation with energy storage provides a cost-effective solution to two challenges.

First, by delivering clean energy directly to LIPA’s existing substation in East Hampton, this proposal serves the growing need on the South Fork without adding new oil-fired power plants or larger transmission lines.

Second, by delivering significant quantities of renewable energy to Long Island, the proposal will help to satisfy LIPA’s commitment to procure 280 MW of on-island renewable capacity; facilitate the Town of East Hampton’s Board mandate to achieve 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030; and support Governor Cuomo’s plans to mandate that half of all power used by New Yorkers be generated from renewable sources by 2030.

Construction on Deepwater ONE - South Fork could begin as early as 2019, with commercial operations by 2022.

Deepwater ONE will produce enough energy to power approximately 50,000 homes, displace tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, and improve air quality on the South Fork.In July 2013, Deepwater Wind won the 30-year lease to develop the Deepwater ONE project in federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf.

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s first-ever competitive lease auction for offshore wind covered two parcels, totaling approximately 256 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean 30 miles east of Montauk.

The Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE — Energy efficiency is not nearly as attention-grabbing as renewable energy. What would you rather read about — the towering wind turbines that will be

installed off Block Island next year or the new light bulbs that are being used in Rhode Island schools and public buildings?

But by tamping down demand for power, efficiency, which covers everything from better insulating homes to using Energy Star-rated appliances, is a pretty effective tool in cutting the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.

It's also incredibly cost-effective. The nonprofit Acadia Center estimates that saving power through efficiency projects equals the costs, on average, of 4 cents a kilowatt hour. Most Rhode Islanders are paying 10.4 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity supplied by utility National Grid.

Rhode Island has worked aggressively over the past decade or so to support energy conservation efforts by offering incentives to homeowners and businesses through a ratepayer-supported fund and other funding mechanisms. In the latest scorecard from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Rhode Island's programs were ranked fourth in the nation.

The newest weapon in Rhode Island's energy-efficiency arsenal is the Efficient Buildings Fund, a program that allows municipalities, school districts and quasi-public agencies to apply for low-cost loans to make improvements that will reduce their carbon footprint.

The fund was created through legislation this year that expanded the scope of the Rhode Island Clean Water Finance Agency to include energy efficiency and renewable energy projects — and renamed it the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank.

The bank works by issuing bonds to finance loans for public construction and improvement projects. Because of its AAA bond rating, its financing charges are low. There are also savings by having one large bond issue available to entities throughout the state rather than having many smaller bond issues, said Joseph Dewhirst, interim executive director of the Infrastructure Bank.

The state Office of Energy Resources is working with the Infrastructure Bank to evaluate all applications for loans through the program and come up with a scored list of projects approved for financing. Proposals that are shovel-ready and reduce energy usage by at least 20 percent will receive higher scores.

The office is now accepting proposals. Applications are due by Jan. 22.

Many entities across the state have already signed up for free energy audits financed by the energy office and National Grid through the program. (The deadline for audits has already passed.) Thirty-nine buildings around the state, including police stations, schools and town halls, have been put on a priority list for the audits, which will help determine the scope of work needed.

“The goal is for deep energy savings, but we're looking for comprehensive plans," said Michael Baer, senior adviser to the executive director of the Infrastructure Bank. “If you're going to replace your boiler, look at your lights as well."

The program will start off with a funding level of $25 million but it could be expanded depending on its success, said Dewhirst. The first round of work on public buildings is expected to start next summer.

The new program comes at a time of increased energy awareness in the state. It was announced last week, a day after Governor Raimondo signed an executive order for all state government buildings to switch to 100-percent renewable energy by 2025. She also made a commitment to reduce state government's energy use by 10 percent by 2019.

New watershed council

The Rhode Island Rivers Council, the group tasked by the legislature with coordinating efforts to protect the state's rivers and the land around them, has approved the 10th watershed council in the state. Somewhat fittingly, the designation was given to the Ten Mile River Watershed Council, based in East Providence.

The group has been active since 2006, sponsoring guided paddles and walks along the 22-mile river that winds from Plainville, Massachusetts, through Rhode Island and empties into the Seekonk River. Its members have also started up a Greenway Stewardship Program and organized cleanups to remove hundreds of tires and other trash from the river.

Official designation as a watershed council is important because it guarantees legal standing in appearances before local and state bodies. Watershed councils are also eligible to receive grants from the state Rivers Council.

Breather for Deepwater

Work on the first offshore wind farm in the nation has wrapped up for the season. Installation of the steel foundations for the five-turbine test project near Block Island was completed late last month, according to developer Deepwater Wind. The turbines will go up next summer.

“From the first ‘steel in the water' in July to the last deck lift in November, we've completed a season of firsts — not only for the Block Island Wind Farm but also for the launch of a new American offshore wind industry," Deepwater CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said in a statement. “We are proud of the work we've accomplished so far, but we've only just begun — and 2016 will be a year to remember."

The work took 18 weeks to complete and involved 200 workers, about half of whom were local, according to Deepwater. Work on parts of the turbine towers will be done at the Port of Providence over the winter. Installation of the undersea cable linking the wind farm to Block Island and to mainland Rhode Island will also start up in the next few weeks.

“I applaud Deepwater Wind for their successful first offshore construction season, and I look forward to seeing the project fully operational and generating renewable energy in 2016," Governor Raimondo said.

Kerr to head Audubon

Congratulations to Meg Kerr, Rhode Island director for Clean Water Action, who is set to take over as senior director of policy at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.

She will succeed Eugenia Marks, a pillar of the state's environmental community who has been at Audubon since 1980 and announced her retirement a few months ago.

Kerr has been at Clean Water Action since 2014. Before that, she was an environmental consultant, work that included helping to draft and push through last year's Resilient Rhode Island Act, which requires the state to take steps to adapt to climate change. She also worked for the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program and for many years helped author Watershed Counts, the annual evaluation of the state's waterways.

With the growth and evolution of offshore wind energy, including the installation of the Deepwater Wind Block Island Wind Farm, marine science and environmental researchers all over the world have been conducting studies on the impact offshore wind farm arrays have on the environment and the weather.

One of the more intriguing studies was conducted by a group of professors who used a simulated model to determine that offshore wind farm arrays could mitigate the impact of hurricanes and super-storms. The findings were published in a study called “Taming Hurricanes,” in Nature Climate Change, co-authored jointly by professors at the University of Delaware and Stanford University. The study concluded that "an army of offshore wind turbines could reduce hurricane wind speeds, wave heights and flood-causing storm surge."

University of Delaware professors Cristina Archer and Willett Kempton, and Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson, utilized their sophisticated climate-weather model

in order to simulate hurricanes Katrina, Isaac, and Sandy to see what would happen if large wind farms, with tens of thousands of turbines, had been in the storms’ paths. The study’s results demonstrated that offshore wind turbine arrays could possibly buffer damage to coastal cities and diminish landfall impact during hurricanes.

The researchers calculated the global potential for wind power, taking into account that as turbines are generating electricity, they are also siphoning off some energy from the atmosphere. Using a model simulation, the researchers found that as a storm approached, the wind farm array would remove energy from the storm’s edge and slow down the fast-moving winds. The lower wind speeds at the hurricane’s perimeter would gradually trickle inwards toward the eye of the storm, slowing it down.

Archer, who is an associate professor in the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, told The Block Island Times that, “The little turbines can fight back the beast.”

According to the computer model, the simulated offshore wind farm decreased storm surge — a key cause of hurricane flooding — by up to 34 percent for Hurricane Sandy and 79 percent for Hurricane Katrina. The winds reduced by the wind farm would in turn lower the height of ocean waves, reducing the winds that push water toward the coast as storm surge. 

“The conceptual idea is brilliant and results of the simulations performed are consistent with what we could expect from energy conservation,” said Annette Grilli, Associate Research Professor from the Department of Ocean Engineering at The University of Rhode Island. “The wind farm acts as a sink of energy, diminishing wind speed and consequently, wave height. Additional indirect positive feedback effects modify the dynamics of the hurricane by increasing the atmospheric pressure and therefore taming the storm. However, it is important to insist on the scale at which the taming process is efficient and the resulting impact on the farm design.”

Grilli said: “The Jacobson, Archer and Kempton simulations are performed for wind farms on the order of 200,000 to 550,000 turbines, forming a belt of about 70 kilometers (approx. 43 miles) in width and up to 3,500 kilometers in length. Such a large scale raises many social and ecological issues that are not considered in the authors’ simplified cost-benefit analysis.”

While offshore wind farm arrays wouldn’t completely dissipate a hurricane, the milder winds would prevent the wind turbines from being damaged. Wind turbines are designed to keep spinning up to a certain wind speed, above which the blades lock and feather into a protective position. The study showed that offshore wind farm arrays would slow wind speeds so that they would not reach that threshold.

“This concept is extremely appealing and wind turbines designed to sustain a Category 2 hurricane could theoretically tame a Category 4 to 5 hurricane to a Category 2 storm before the high winds reached the turbines,” said Grilli.  “However, wave breaking is a potential additional source of damage to the wind turbines and it is important to carefully

simulate and predict waves, wave breaking zones, and induced impulse force under all potential wave conditions to optimize the turbine siting based on design characteristics of the turbines.”

According to Archer, Kempton and Jacobson’s study, wind turbines will have some ability to protect both themselves and coastal communities from storm damage. The primary question then may be: will a small wind farm be overwhelmed by a Category 5 hurricane? And, therefore, would the cost of construction for storm defense purposes be prohibitive if offshore wind farms incur damage from super-storms to wind turbines and equipment?

"The study shows that it indeed works for very large farms, at 300-plus gigawatts," said Grilli. "For a smaller farm the wind inside the farm will be reduced locally, but the array size will not be large enough to change the dynamic of the storm, which means that a Category 5 hurricane will stay a Category 5 hurricane when it will hit the first wind turbine. In that case the turbines need to be designed to sustain whatever conditions the wind climate is in the area, as is currently the case in any wind farm project."

Grilli explained that if a developer were to build a "mega-farm, I do not think that anybody would, and should, take the risk to install turbines with lower standards that the one prescribed for the current wind climate based on a theoretical study. As any theoretical study it needs to be validated against measured data, so the first step towards validation would be to build an experimental mega-farm and check the model against measured data." 

Grilli said, "In terms of cost-benefit analysis, it is important to note that indirect costs, such as damage to the fishery industry, and non-monetary costs, like ecological, social usage, etc., are not taken into consideration. Those are minimized in a small farm."

Jacobson believes that an offshore wind farm array of any size will have an impact on reducing storms and serve as a defense force. Traditionally obstacles and variances in topography slow and dissipate hurricanes. That’s why when a hurricane reaches landfall it loses steam and weakens.

“A wind farm of any size will have a benefit, with little risk of turbine destruction for east-coast hurricanes,” said Jacobson, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. “Research should be focused more on where to site wind farms offshore to have the best benefit in terms of hurricane dissipation and power generation.”

Storm damage to coastlines ends up costing the federal government and cities, states and municipalities billions of dollars in relief funding to rectify damage to infrastructure, not to mention the unspeakable loss of lives and property to those people living in these coastal communities from the damage that those storms inflicted. Hurricane Katrina cost approximately $108 billion in damage, making it the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. Hurricane Sandy cost about $80 billion in damage, and was the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history. 

Despite questions associated with the size of offshore wind farm arrays as a defense force and their effectiveness on a smaller scale, Grilli says that siting wind farms as a storm defense mechanism should be considered by federal, state and local agencies.

“Since the size of the wind farm is critical, if proven effective, such a belt should definitely be considered as part of a general federal siting policy, providing society accepts such a different usage of the ocean and the necessary compromises it will require,” noted Grilli. “However, before this can be implemented, we would need additional modeling for alternative scenarios, including simulating a fragmented belt at higher spatial resolution.”

The question locally is whether or not a wind farm the size of the five turbine, 30-megawatt Deepwater Wind Block Island Wind Farm would have an environmental impact during a hurricane or super-storm.

“In our paper (study) we looked at the sensitivity to the number and size of the turbines and the good news is that the benefits were not linear,” noted Archer. “In other words, we reduced the number of turbines down to a half of the original case and the benefits did not get reduced to a half, they were better than half. We definitely need more funds and more research, but my gut feeling is that even a small farm will have a benefit.”

“The scale of the taming farm in the study is much larger than the scale of the farm planned by the current developers (Deepwater Wind),” said Grilli. “The study demonstrates the efficiency of the system for extremely large farms, on the order of 100,000 to 400,000 turbines for their east coast scenario. Additional modeling at a regional scale including the necessary gaps in the turbine’s belt should be performed with additional storm scenarios, to assess the benefit of a more realistic fragmented belt on taming the storms.  If such results are as encouraging as the initial results are, then definitely new federal siting guidelines or policy should be developed.”

The Block Island Wind Farm, which is a pilot project, is situated three miles off the southeast coast of Block Island. Deepwater Wind plans on constructing a larger 1,000-megawatt wind farm in the future that will contain about 200 wind turbines, and be located in federal waters between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.