Research | Offshore Wind

How can scientists support the reduction of carbon emissions while ensuring marine life, habitats and livelihoods are protected?

Offshore wind—a source of clean, renewable energy that can power hundreds of thousands of homes—offers great potential for Rhode Island, and the nation overall, to meet its stated goals for reducing carbon emissions. Meanwhile, as wind farms off the coast of New England move forward, oceanographers and policy-makers work to ensure marine life, habitats and livelihoods are protected. The state is home to the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm, a five-turbine farm off the coast of Block Island, and more are in the works.

In The News

NOAA, URI partner to explore effects of offshore wind energy development

NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and URI have signed a 5-year partnership agreement to research how offshore wind energy development will affect marine ecosystems & the people who live near, or work on, the ocean.

Rhody Today

CRMC goes fishing for coastal data

State coastal regulators have a new tool that will help them make decisions on shoreline development projects. The Rhode Island Recreational Fishing Tool surveyed some 300 residents on what they like to fish for and where, identifying about 2,500 coastal fishing spots.

ECORI News

Scientists: No link between whale deaths and offshore wind construction.

Bob Kenney, an emeritus marine research scientist at GSO who has studied whales, dolphins and other marine vertebrates for 35 years, describes the conjectures linking offshore wind to whale mortality as misinformation.

The Providence Journal

Science and knowledge for sustainable ocean planning

Sea Grant’s Offshore Wind Energy Liaison Initiative

The National Sea Grant Offshore Wind Energy Liaison Team is based at Rhode Island Sea Grant in partnership with the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography.

They work with Sea Grant partners and other collaborators to better assist communities experiencing offshore wind energy development, supporting the need for educational information, science-based decision-making, and community social science research.

Explore sea grant’s OWE resources

Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS)

Supported by GSO, Inner Space Center, NSF, NOAA and the Office of Naval Research, the DOSITS website provides information for the public on acoustics in the ocean.

Explore the dosits resources

Rhode Island Recreational Fishing Tool

URI’s Coastal Resources Center & Rhode Island Sea Grant collaborated with state coastal regulators and the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association to identify recreational fishing use in RI state waters.

The purpose of the research study was to understand where recreational fishing is taking place within Rhode Island salt waters to ensure this important user community’s needs are represented when evaluating coastal development permits.

EXPLORE THE TOOL

Offshore wind and fisheries

From the experts

GSO Professor Jeremy Collie is researching lobster larvae as part of Sea Grant’s American Lobster Initiative, which links lobster research with fishing communities that need and can use the results.

Sea Grant’s Larvae and JuveNILES Research

Offshore wind and marine mammals

From the experts

Ocean engineering professor & acoustician James Miller has studied sounds from the construction of every offshore wind farm in the United States, starting with the nation’s first, the Block Island Wind Farm.

Read the Interview