TGS completes near-surface 3D survey for New York Bight offshore wind project

TGS has finished acquiring an ultra-high-resolution 3D (UHR3D) survey for Community Offshore Wind in the New York Bight.

The survey, which began last October, was designed to characterize soil conditions at the location to support the offshore wind development.

BOEM awarded the lease area to Community Offshore Wind, a joint venture between RWE and National Grid Ventures, under a competitive lease sale offshore the coasts of New York and New Jersey, staged in February 2022.

The lease area could potentially provide 3 GW of offshore wind power capacity.

TGS’s brief was to compile more detailed information on the near-surface geology than traditional site surveys that have employed 2D technology, using the Sanco Swift vessel.

Carel Hooijkaas, evp of New Energy Solutions at TGS, said: “Our geophysical approach to mapping and understanding the shallow subsurface layers will reduce uncertainty and speed up site characterization.”

Following interest from other developers, the company has decided to invest in another UHR3D streamer set, which will be deployed in a few weeks' time.”

Doug Perkins, president and project director of Community Offshore Wind, said the joint venture aimed to use the technology “to study how the soil behaves in our lease area, so that we can engineer our project effectively and in a way that’s environmentally friendly.

“We are building a project that is going to generate clean energy for communities in the US Northeast for roughly 30 years, so precision is key for building a project of this scale. The data acquired from the survey allows to plan with more precision and certainty than ever before.”