In order to protect New England’s whale populations and fisheries, Bay State Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource Energy, announced their plan to give out $2 million in environmental research and program grants. The grants will be awarded upon Bay State Wind’s selection as the developer of the future offshore wind farm that will be located 25 miles south of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Ørsted is the world’s largest developer and operator of offshore wind farms and Eversource is New England’s leading electrical transmission company. The joint venture is bidding to build the first commercial-scale wind farm in the country that has the potential to power one million Massachusetts homes.
Largest among the planned grant is $1 million allocated for a Bay State Wind Marine Science Grant Program dealing with directed fishery resources research on Bay State Wind’s lease area.
Other grants include a multi-year $500,000 grant to the Woods Hole Oceanography Institute for developing advanced whale detection systems and $250,000 each to the Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts and the New England Aquarium Right Whale Research Project to prevent gear entanglement of North Atlantic Right Whales.
“We are taking steps to strengthen the population of the North Atlantic Right Whale, which is weakened by boat strikes and fishing gear entanglements,” said Laura Morse, whale biologist and environmental manager at Bay State Wind. “In addition, Bay State Wind will address two of the main threats to marine life — rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification — with the clean energy that its wind farms will produce.”
