The commercial fishing industry is saying “not so fast” regarding the proposal by five offshore wind leaseholders to institute a one nautical mile of spacing between wind turbines for upcoming development in the New England region. The turbine spacing would be arranged in a north, south, east and west uniformed grid formation pattern.
The problem is: for safety purposes, the commercial fishing industry says it needs more spacing to conduct its business, noting that up to four nautical miles of spacing for the transit lanes in that region would be suitable.
The five New England offshore wind leaseholders, or developers, that made the proposal are Equinor, Mayflower Wind, Ørsted/Eversource, and Vineyard Wind. They issued a press release on Nov. 19 stating that:
“In response to feedback from key stakeholders, we have proposed to adopt a uniform turbine layout across our adjacent New England lease areas. This uniform layout has subsequently been proposed to the United States Coast Guard (USCG) for its review. The proposed layout specifies that turbines will be spaced one nautical mile apart, arranged in east-west rows and north-south columns, with the rows and columns continuous across all New
