Hydrodynamic Impacts of Offshore Wind Energy on Nantucket Shoals Regional Ecology 202

From: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023

Potential Hydrodynamic Impacts of Offshore Wind Energy on Nantucket Shoals Regional Ecology: An Evaluation from Wind to Whales (2023)   Full document pdf

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CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

Conclusion: Knowledge of the effects of offshore wind turbine structures on hydrodynamics is limited and primarily based on modeling studies. At the turbine scale, there are few observations that can be used to verify turbine-scale wake behavior, and coverage of parameter space is limited in modeling studies. 

At the wind farm scale, the potential impacts include reduction in ocean current speeds, reduction in the stratification, reduction in ocean surface wind speed, and deflection of the pycnocline. At the regional scale, perturbations due to turbines are difficult to quantify because of the natural processes that drive significant environmental variability across the region. 

Understanding Hydrodynamic Effects 

Conclusion: There are significant uncertainties in the hydrodynamic response of the wind and ocean wakes and of hydrodynamic effects of turbines. 

Conclusion: Impacts of offshore wind development in the Nantucket Shoals region on the regional hydrodynamics are uncertain and will be difficult to isolate from the much larger magnitude of variability introduced by natural and anthropogenic sources (including climate change) in this dynamic and evolving oceanographic system. 

Conclusion: More hydrodynamic observations are available at the regional scale than at the wind farm and turbine scales. Existing oceanographic monitoring programs historically have, and should continue to provide, important baseline data at the regional scale; new smaller-scale observational studies are encouraged and are a priority. 

Recommendation: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and others should promote, and where possible, require observational studies within wind farms during all phases of wind energy development:

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surveying, construction, operation, and decommissioning—that target processes at the relevant turbine to wind farm scales to isolate, quantify, and characterize the hydrodynamic effects. 

Studies at Block Island, Dominion, Vineyard Wind I, and South Fork should be considered as case study sites given their varying numbers of turbines, types of foundation, and sizes of spacing of turbines.