After more than a year of preparations and near-shore testing, the Fishermen’s Energy Wind Sentinel buoy was relocated from a test site near Atlantic City to an offshore area leased from the US Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
Located eleven miles east of Ocean City, NJ, this site is within the Mid-Atlantic Wind Energy Area, in an area Fishermen’s Energy proposed to build a 350MW windfarm. Locating the buoy in Federal Waters required approvals from BOEM, the US Coast Guard, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Fishermen’s Energy contracted with Northstar Marine (Clermont, NJ), to build the anchoring system and install the Wind Sentinel system. The device is now operating in 65 feet of water and transmitting environmental and meteorological data back to Fishermen’s offices to support windfarm design and development. The Fishermen’s Wind Sentinel is a suite of environmental monitoring sensors which are installed on a buoy platform called the NOMAD, developed by the US Navy in the 1940’s.
