Fugro has completed four years of continuous survey operations for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind in New York and New Jersey, where the company was supporting the site assessment for five offshore wind projects across three lease areas.
According to Fugro, a new data collection and management approach employed on the Atlantic Shores portfolio of projects increased survey efficiency by 30 per cent and contributed to the recent federal approval of the Atlantic Shores South offshore wind farms off New Jersey.
The Netherlands-based multinational offshore survey company says it streamlined the survey and data acquisition process by consolidating multiple independent campaigns to gather oceanographic, seabed, soil and habitat data into a single, integrated programme.
To manage the large volumes of data (upwards of 100 TB), Fugro collaborated with Atlantic Shores to develop Fugro VirGeo, a cloud-based geo-data engagement and delivery platform that provides real-time project information which enables faster decision-making.
“The platform also facilitated the first digital deliverables to federal regulators, supplementing the thousands of pages of reports required by current permitting standards. This push toward digital deliverables aims to increase transparency, build public trust, and further compress the development timeline through more efficient regulatory reviews, steps critical to achieving the aggressive national goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030,” Fugro stated in a press release on 5 August.
Fugro also said that, throughout the four-year field programme, the company achieved Atlantic Shores’ “Goal Zero” safety standard for people and the environment.
“This accomplishment was made possible by the safety excellence of Fugro’s own team, as well as their subcontractors Alpine and S.T. Hudson Engineers, two local survey companies whose work on the project contributes to Atlantic Shores’ commitment to New Jersey job creation,” Fugro said.
Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind is a joint venture between Shell and EDF Renewables.
The joint venture holds leases for three offshore wind areas, which are under active development. Two of the areas are located approximately 10-20 miles (16 to 32 kilometres) off the coast of New Jersey, between Atlantic City and Barnegat Light, and one in the New York Bight.
The lease block OCS-A 0499 off New Jersey was split into two areas in 2021. The southern part of the block contains the Atlantic Shores South Project 1 and Atlantic Shores South Project 2, while the northern part of the block was given a new lease number, OCS-A 0549, and named Atlantic Shores North by the lease owners.
The joint venture also holds the rights for lease area OCS-A 0541, which it won in the New York Bight auction in 2022 and which it currently refers to as Atlantic Shores Bight.
In July this year, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved the 2.8 GW Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind South, which comprises the 1,510 MW Atlantic Shores South Project 1 and the 1,327 MW Atlantic Shores South Project 2.
Earlier this year, BOEM initiated the environmental review for the proposed Atlantic Shores North .