Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind is deploying two buoys in its lease area off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, to collect atmospheric, cold pool and animal migration data.
The aim is to strengthen atmospheric models that help inform how the developer designs and estimates energy production for its proposed project.
The buoys will be launched in May with the atmospheric data collection instruments and this fall the sensors will be added to begin collecting migration and stop-over data of turtles, bird species, fish and other species which may be nanotagged, including bats and large insects.
The sensors will collect data on the unique signature emitted by each tag, including animal location, migration speed between points, length of stop-over and other aspects about their behavior and conservation.
Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL) will use some of the data collected from the upcoming buoy deployment and the ongoing wind LiDAR installation to evaluate the Rutgers University Weather Research Forecasting atmospheric modeling system.
“We are thrilled to progress the study of our Lease Area and provide data to institutions such as Rutgers University,” said Jennifer Daniels, Development Director from Atlantic Shores. “The analysis that students, faculty and our team will conduct is essential to further develop our knowledge of the Lease Area’s atmospheric and ecological conditions.”
Atlantic Shores, a 50:50 joint venture between EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies US, holds development rights for an offshore wind zone located some 14 to 32 km off the New Jersey coast, between Barnegat Light and Atlantic City.
The lease area spans across 183,353 ha and has the potential to generate over 3 GW of wind energy.
At the end of last year, the joint venture submitted its proposal to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to supply the state with up to 2,300 MW of offshore wind energy.