MA DMF engages in offshore wind by conducting technical review of permitting documents, fulfilling advisory roles for regional research efforts, providing best management recommendations to state and federal agencies in response to developer permitting submissions, and is committed to engaging fishery stakeholders in all phases of industry development. In the last year, DMF has reviewed permitting documents, fisheries economic exposure and environmental impact assessments, and monitoring plans associated with the South Fork Wind, Sunrise Wind, Beacon Wind, South Coast Wind, and New England Wind (Park City Wind and Commonwealth Wind) projects. 

DMF also assisted in the development and review of fisheries compensations plans among a variety of offshore wind projects in Southern New England including Sunrise Wind and New England Wind that will be used to offset economic impacts to Massachusetts commercial and for-hire fishing due to loss of access or reduction of harvest during construction and operation, including within the wind energy area and the export cable. All drafts of the fisheries compensation and economic exposure analyses were presented to the MA Fisheries Working Group in September. Sunrise Wind’s compensation package totaled $11,288,000 including $8,788,000 for the direct compensation program (commercial and for-hire fisheries); $1,000,000 for a fishery decommissioning fund (offset direct losses during decommissioning); $1,000,000 for a coastal community fund that will support the co-existence of the fishing and wind industries. $500,000 for the Navigation Enhancement and Training Program that will support upgrades to navigation equipment, professional training opportunities, and experiential learning. New England Wind’s first phased project (Park City Wind LLC) entered into a two-part fisheries compensation agreement with the Commonwealth that totaled $7,359,471. Park City Wind LLC will provide a total of $5,859,471 in funding to the direct fisheries compensation program and $1,500,000 to support the Massachusetts Fisheries Innovation Fund (MFIF). 

The MFIF’s purpose is to support programs and projects that ensure safe and profitable fishing continues as offshore wind development continues through grants for technology and innovation upgrades and studies that assess the impacts of offshore wind development on fishing industries and resources. Currently, the MFIF is separate from the Fisheries Innovation Fund established by Vineyard Wind LLC ($1.75 million). The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs plans to merge these two separate innovations funds into one combined legislative trust named the Massachusetts Fisheries Innovation Fund. 

Southern New England Wind Projects
As of late December, two of the nine offshore wind projects in Southern New England south of Martha’s Vineyard have installed the export cable, several wind turbine foundations (monopile), electrical service platforms, and inter-array cables. Vineyard Wind has installed four complete wind turbines and is expected to start generating power by the end of 2023. Vineyard Wind has currently installed 34 of 62 monopile foundations- four have turbines installed- and one electrical service platform. The export cable installation (landfall at Covell’s beach in Barnstable County) and testing was completed for Vineyard Wind in October 2023. All turbines in Vineyard Wind 1 are expected to be installed by early 2024. DMF continues to support EEA in hosting and administering the $1.75 Fisheries Innovation Fund established through an MOA between Vineyard Wind LLC and EEA to enhance fisheries coexistence with offshore wind development. DMF is currently working with the fund’s advisory panel to provide recommendations for the disbursement of funds that are directed towards projects pertaining to fishing vessel technology and safety innovations or conducting studies that monitor effects of fisheries and vessel impacts to offshore wind.

As of December 2023, South Fork wind has installed all 12 of its monopile foundations, one electrical service platform and has installed its first wind turbine. In November 2023, South Fork Wind installed the offshore export cable from the wind farm to its onshore landfall site in Westhampton Beach, NY.

 In November 2023, Revolution Wind was approved for construction and operation by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and is expected to start offshore wind construction in 2024 and is anticipated to be operational in 2025.

All other RI/MA offshore wind projects are in various stages of the environmental review and site assessment process. Sunrise Wind, SouthCoast Wind, and New England Wind currently have their Draft Environmental Impact Statements published. In November 2023,

Beacon Wind published the Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Assessment for Additional Site Assessment activities.

Bay State Wind recently submitted its Construction and Operations Plan and

Vineyard Northeast is currently in its site assessment phase. All current and proposed export cable routes with landfall in MA are primarily traversing through the Muskeget Channel export cable corridor (width ~3500 ft.) and around the southern end of Martha’s Vineyard (10 nautical miles offshore) through the Sakonnet River. Sunrise Wind’s export cable will traverse Southwest with landfall connections in Long Island, NY.

Seabed preparation activities prior and during construction consisted of displacing boulders from wind turbine foundation and cable route locations. Relocated boulder’s location information is available on Notice to Mariners webpages on Vineyard Wind’s and Orsted’s websites. MA DMF, MA Coastal Zone Management (CZM), and NMFS have developed a draft boulder relocation mitigation framework and guidance document for BOEM and offshore wind developers that requests the need to characterize types of disturbances from boulders, understand how changes may affect fish habitat, and evaluate how relocated boulders influence fishing activities and gear conflicts. 

Gulf of Maine 
On October 20, BOEM released the draft Wind Energy Area (WEA) for the Gulf of Maine. The draft area encompasses a total area of 3,519,067 acres (a 64.11% reduction of the Call Area). The draft WEA has a combined capacity of over 40 Gigawatts (assuming a power density of 3 megawatts per sq. km). This energy production capacity of the draft WEA exceeds the current combined offshore wind planning goals for the Gulf of Maine states (10 GW from Gulf of Maine for Massachusetts by 2050 and 3 GW for Maine by 2040). All areas currently identified in the draft WEA are deeper than 120m and at least 20nm offshore. Given the depth of the draft WEA, all potential offshore wind development will likely consist of floating technology. BOEM will finalize the WEA in the Gulf of Maine by February 2024. DMF collaborated with CZM and other EEA departments on a comment letter to BOEM outlining areas and conflicts of most concern. The EEA comment letter on the draft Gulf of Maine WEA incorporated input received from the Massachusetts fishing industry across several workshops and meetings in October and November, as well as subject matter experts from EEA agencies and offices. The stakeholder meetings focused on topics such as fisheries navigation considerations (wind farm spacing, orientation, etc.), impacts to federal and state surveys, and identifying key fishing features (swells, ledges, banks, etc.) within the Gulf of Maine to facilitate BOEM’s decision-making on establishing Final WEAs.  Once the WEAs are finalized, engagement and commenting opportunities will be available during the formation of bidding credits, lease stipulations, lease characteristics, and state energy procurement. 

Draft WEAs were established by BOEM from a spatial suitability model that included four sub-models (wind industry, fisheries, natural & cultural resources, and industry & operations) and other fisheries/navigation considerations (e.g., Lobster Management Area 1, Cashes Ledge, Jeffreys Bank). All sub-models were weighted equally, while data layers within sub-models comprised of different weighting schemes. The fisheries sub-model contained 6 data layers that each contributed 4.16% to the overall spatial suitability model. Among all sub-models, a total of 98 data layers were selected to represent major ocean characteristics for the Gulf of Maine and identify space-use conflicts and environmental constraints for each 10-acre hexagonal grid in the Call Area (984,797 grid cells). Using an autocorrelation cluster analysis, one draft WEA was identified based on the most suitable areas. Of note, the current draft WEA represents the area identified by BOEM for potential wind lease areas and therefore, the cumulative area of the leasing areas could be smaller than the WEA. BOEM has also identified three Secondary Areas for further analysis from the spatial suitability model that are not included in the draft WEA but could receive consideration when finalizing WEAs, contingent on the public comments received electric export cable routes from the Gulf of Maine WEA will not be proposed and finalized until after lease areas have been identified and sold to wind developers. For those interested in the spatial suitability model used for the Gulf of Maine in more detail, the draft NOAA-NCCOS report can be downloaded from the BOEM webpage. 

After the Final WEAs are designated for the Gulf of Maine, BOEM will release a series of notices and a lease auction that will span approximately a 1.5-year period.  The first notice, a Proposed Sale Notice, is used by BOEM to inform offshore wind developers about upcoming lease auctions and its duration is at least 60 days. Once the Proposed Sale Notice comment period closes, BOEM will publish a Final Sale Notice aimed at developers and provides the final terms and conditions for a lease sale, including the date, time, and location for the sale itself. The Final Sale Notice will also include the list of the companies that have legally, technically, and financially qualified to participate in the lease sale. After at least 45 days from the Final Sale Notice, BOEM will hold a lease sale and will subsequently identify the winner through an auction (final lease sales expected by December 2024). 

General Commonwealth Offshore Wind Updates 
By 2027, previously enacted Massachusetts law codified a goal of receiving 5,600 megawatts (MW) of electricity from offshore wind. In June 2023, Massachusetts procured over 3,200 MW of electricity from power purchase agreements (PPAs). However, Massachusetts currently has less than 1,000 MW procured due to many developers reneging on PPAs from increased inflationary costs and supply chain issues. On October 4, 2023, Governor Healy announced a multi-state memorandum of understanding (MOU) between CT, RI, and MA to procure up to 6,000 MW of electricity to New England states.  Through this MOU, the three states will review multi-state offshore wind proposals with project selection depending on each state’s evaluation criteria in their respective request for proposals (RFPs). Any two or three states may agree to select a multi-state proposal(s) up to each state’s procurement authority and split anticipated MW from a single project. DMF plans to work with our counterparts in CT and RI to determine potential areas for overlap pertaining to environmental mitigation and assessing cumulative impacts associated with offshore wind within each state’s RFP. 

On April 20, 2023 Secretary Tepper announced the establishment of the EEA Interagency Offshore Wind Council (IOWC) to advance the responsible development of offshore wind to meet the Commonwealth’s climate goals. The IOWC will be responsible for developing and maintaining an Offshore Wind Strategic Plan (Plan) with stakeholder and community input. The Plan will: 1) lay out the status of the offshore wind industry to the Commonwealth, existing legal and policy frameworks, and progress made to date, 2) identify key drivers, gaps, and needs and findings, and 3) recommend specific actions and strategies necessary to advance the Plan’s goals and objectives before 2040. The Plan’s objectives will be relevant to its three primary components for balancing economic development, socioenvironmental considerations, and energy advancement needs. The main objectives within the Plan are to grow Massachusetts as a national hub for offshore wind economic development; promote research and innovation for new technologies, solutions, and services; ensure comprehensive planning with robust stakeholder engagement; implement efficient and effective environmental reviews and support for mutual co-existence; establish long-term offshore wind energy targets and plan for procurements; and develop a modern and resilient transmission system with efficient interconnection of offshore wind. The approval and issuance of the Plan is expected by September 2024. 

By Justin Bopp, Offshore Wind Specialist