Supporter

Sophie Hartfield Lewis

Head of Permitting, Marine Affairs and Real Estate, Orsted North America

Orsted is the global leader in offshore wind power having delivered one-third of all global offshore wind capacity installed, encompassing some of the largest and most technologically advanced offshore wind farms in the world.  Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind delivers clean, renewable energy along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. It operates the Block Island Wind Farm, America’s first offshore wind farm, and has been awarded over 2,900 megawatts of capacity through six projects. It is jointly headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island and employs more than 150 people.

 

We are excited to be building an offshore wind industry here in the U.S., which will bring reliable, clean energy to thousands of households and businesses. We recognize that by working together with ocean users who have been using these waters for generations, we can make commercial scale offshore wind power a reality for the United States, while protecting the health of our ocean ecosystem.

 

Ocean planning is very important in locating the lease areas for offshore wind, it supports the regulators in locating the best lease sites with minimum impacts to existing ocean users. It helps us as a Developer to find the best locations for our turbines, cables and the best port and harbor facilities to facilitate the growth of this new ocean industry.

 

We use extensively the marine data portals for visualizing a wide range of ocean use data in one central platform. For the waters of the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic where we hold leases the plans provide us key insight in to exactly what is going on in these busy waters so that we can advance offshore wind in this new market and use resources in a truly sustainable way.’

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Why We Need Ocean Planning

The ocean and coasts are active places, and we’re putting more demands on them every day. Think about it: traditional uses such as fishing, boating, shipping, recreation, and tourism are all changing and expanding, and at the same time we’re pioneering new industries alongside them like wind energy and sand mining. Ocean planning is about thinking ahead and planning for how to make it all work. Otherwise, we put the ocean’s vast, yet fragile, resources at risk. Voluntary ocean planning allows us to coordinate all these uses in a way that benefits our economy, our communities, and ocean health. Ocean planning is a science-based and data-driven process that provides a tool for people and government to work together, share information and solve problems in a way that works for everyone. Ocean planning helps to identify and resolve potential conflicts early on, helping decision makers and stakeholders in both the private and public sectors do their jobs better. This creates better outcomes for everyone, supporting a healthy ocean and vibrant economy

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