Fugro concludes long-term survey work for five Atlantic Shores offshore wind projects

Fugro has completed four years of continuous survey operations offshore New Jersey and New York for developer Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind.

The program has supported site assessments of five projects across three lease areas totalling 1,000 sq km.

Fugro worked with Atlantic Shores to apply a new data collection and management approach that is said to have increased survey efficiency by 30%, also contributing to the recent federal approval of the 2,800-MW Atlantic Shores South project offshore New Jersey.

Offshore wind site assessments typically involve multiple campaigns to compile oceanographic, seabed, soil and habitat data. In this case, Fugro consolidated the process into a single, integrated program.

To manage the large volumes of data associated, the company collaborated with Atlantic Shores to develop the Fugro VirGeo cloud-based geo-data engagement and delivery platform.

It is designed to provides project information in real time to speed up decision‑making both in the field and in offices.

The platform also enabled the first digital deliverables to federal regulators, Fugro added, supplementing the thousands of pages of reports that current permitting standards require.

One of the goals is to shorten the development timeline through more efficient regulatory reviews.