US offshore wind regulators are advancing their expanded environmental review of the pioneering $2.8bn Vineyard Wind array as “expeditiously as possible”, but won’t cut corners in their efforts to identify best practices for offshore wind project design in federal waters, Walter Cruickshank, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), tells Recharge.
“Looking at the long-term, we really hope to set the foundation through this analysis that will allow later projects to be able to navigate the process more smoothly,” he says, referring to the agency’s detailed and lengthy environmental review of the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) that developers submit for each project as required by US law.
