After more than a year of preparation and near-shore testing near Atlantic City, N.J., offshore wind developer Fishermen's Energy says it relocated a Wind Sentinel buoy to an offshore area leased from the U. S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
Located 11 miles east of Ocean City, N.J., Fishermen's Energy notes the site is within the Mid-Atlantic wind energy area, where the company intends to build a 350 MW offshore wind farm.
Deploying the buoy in federal waters required approvals from BOEM, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers, explains Stephen O'Malley, Fishermen's director of metocean assessments. The primary system in the Wind Sentinel is a LIDAR wind measurement device that provides information on wind speed, direction and shear from the water surface to a height of nearly 500 feet.
With approvals in hand, he says, Fishermen's Energy contracted with Claremont, N.J.-based Northstar Marine to build the anchoring system and install the Wind Sentinel system.
‘The device is now operating in 65 feet of water and transmitting environmental and meteorological data back to Fishermen's offices to support wind farm design and development,’ says O'Malley.
Fishermen's says the Wind Sentinel is equipped with environmental monitoring sensors that are installed on a buoy platform called the NOMAD. Developed by the U.S. Navy in the 1940s, the NOMAD is a reliable platform still used by major oceanographic research institutions.
