Up to 9.6 gigawatts of offshore wind energy could be generated on lease tracts in the New York Bight outlined by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency says.
Two weeks before a meeting with state and regional agencies in New York City, BOEM issued a draft plan for wind energy areas (WEAs) off the coasts of New York and New Jersey – a key stop toward preparing for future lease sales, like those already sold off southern New England.
The draft plan outlines up to 793,862 acres of what BOEM calls primary and secondary areas. Primary alone total 315,268 acres, which the agency says could accommodate around 3.8 gigawatts of wind-generated power.
The draft WEAs are far smaller than the initial “call areas” first outlined when BOEM began a public comment process that led to vocal objections from the commercial fishing industry, and calls for vessel transit areas with deep setbacks from where future wind turbine arrays could be built.
During that process James Bennett, chief of BOEM’s renewable energy program, cautioned that the likely outcome would recommend only a fraction of the call areas for future leasing proposals.
On charts released Wednesday by the agency, “the dark green areas are BOEM’s primary recommendations, areas that relative to others with in the Call Areas present the least amount of conflict with a potential offshore wind facility,” according to the agency.
“Areas is light green are secondary recommendations, which are slightly more conflicted than the dark green areas, and are where BOEM welcomes additional stakeholder perspectives.”
There will be much discussion of those conflicts when BOEM holds its intergovernmental task force meeting Nov. 28 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.
Likewise the Coast Guard and advisors from the maritime industry have recommended broad transit lanes for offshore tug and tow traffic that cuts diagonally across the New York Bight, between Cape May, N.J., and Montauk Point, N.Y.
