LBT Officials Develop New Rendering Showing More Turbine Visibility

Jul 23, 2023

By Gina G. Scala | on August 30, 2023

IT’S CLEAR AS DAY: Beachgoers will have an unobstructed view of windmills if a proposed offshore wind plan moves forward, a 3D model using data points from the developer shows. (Photo Courtesy Long Beach Township)

Using a photograph of the Holgate skyline and beach as well as data from the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind plan, a Maryland-based multimedia company created a three-dimensional model of what wind turbines will look like from the beach, driving home what many say will be the impact of a proposed wind generation farm off Long Beach Township.

Interface Multimedia, an integrated digital marketing company in Silver Spring, Md., produced the model depicting how the turbines will look from the shoreline on a clear summer day. The company was commissioned to do the work on behalf of the township by Warwick Group Consultants, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm the board of commissioners hired by resolution earlier this year.

Mayor Joseph Mancini said it took Interface Multimedia several days to accurately create the rendering because there were so many data points in the Atlantic Shores construction and operations plan.

“Imagine 200 spinning turbines,” Mancini said of what beachgoers can expect to see if the Atlantic Shores project moves forward as planned, adding that the turbines will not be synchronized as he pointed to a photocopy of the rendering that shows the blades rotating at different speeds.

Gordon Perkins, an expert on visibility for Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, has said data overwhelmingly show that shoreline visibility is going to be a rare occurrence.

“It’s complicated. It’s incredibly complicated,” Perkins said in an interview last summer with The SandPaper, adding, “Visibility is reflective light, and the opacity of the atmosphere changes the amount of reflective light that your eye sees. The atmosphere in an offshore environment is incredibly variable and there’s a lot happening out there that can change minute-to-minute, day-to-day.”

Still, Mancini noted the five 380-foot-high turbines of the Jersey-Atlantic Wind Farm, located at the wastewater treatment plant in Atlantic City can be clearly seen from the parking lot of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Holgate 13.5 miles away.

The proposed Atlantic Shores windmills are “thicker, bigger and closer,” he said. Township officials are launching an awareness campaign about the proposed Atlantic Shores project after feedback from residents suggested there wasn’t enough public information on the subject.

As planned, the Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind farm would site 1,050-foot-high turbines between 9.5 and 13.5 miles out in the ocean off the entire length of LBI and extending farther eastward. The project is a 50-50 partnership between Shell New Energies US LLC and EDF Renewables North America. It was formed in December 2018 to co-develop nearly 183,353 acres of leased sea area on the Outer Continental Shelf, located within the New Jersey Wind Energy Area.

The project is comprised of three phases, with the first phase expected to be approved later this year. It includes 120 turbines to be placed in the Atlantic Ocean with phase two calling for the placement of 80 turbines; phase three has 157 turbines.

Project 1 is expected to begin construction in 2025, and operations would start in 2028. Its operational period ends in 2048.

“It’s the largest industrialization of the ocean this close to shore in the world,” Mancini said.

And it could become bigger if the N.J. Board of Public Utilities approves the company’s bid to expand its initial wind farm project, first approved in 2021. If that happens, Atlantic Shores will supply renewable energy to hundreds of thousands of New Jersey households beyond the 1,510 megawatts already planned as part of its Project 1.

Whether New Jersey households will exclusively benefit from electricity generated off the state’s coast is unclear. The state is part of PJM Interconnection, “a regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.”

— Gina G. Scala

[email protected]

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