October 16, 2020 — BOEM is reviewing the Construction and Operation Plans (COP) for a number of projects in the Atlantic, which are contingent on the agency issuing its first Environmental Impact Statement for a large-scale offshore wind project in federal waters.
“I think there is a recognition that BOEM doesn’t have all the resources to put out six or seven COPs at one time,” particularly in the same wind energy areas, Geri Edens, counsel for Vineyard Wind, said on the panel.
But while staggering the permitting of the rest of the projects might make sense for BOEM, it is “not necessarily ideal for the industry, because everyone’s been waiting for a while now to get these things forward,” she said.
BOEM had pushed back its review of Vineyard Wind’s Massachusetts construction plan for 1.5 years, deciding that permitting for offshore wind needed to be done in a more holistic capacity, including considerations for further expansion of the resource.
The delay has led other projects to revise their timelines, such as the 120 MW Skipjack Offshore Energy wind farm, which originally sought commercial operation as early as November 2022.
The bandwidth of BOEM will be stretched in January 2021 regardless of how the election turns out, experts say.
According to the Permitting Dashboard for Federal Infrastructure Projects produced by DOI and other agencies, federal permitting applications for Vineyard Wind and Deepwater Wind’s South Fork Wind Farm are both in progress. BOEM has received COPs for 10 offshore wind projects to date.