Abstract
This report supplements the Kitty Hawk North Wind Construction and Operations Plan.
Kitty Hawk Wind, LLC (the Company), a wholly owned subsidiary of Avangrid Renewables, LLC proposes to construct, own, and operate the Kitty Hawk North Wind Project (the Project). The Project will be located in the designated Renewable Energy Lease Area OCS-A 0508 (Lease Area). The Commercial Lease of Submerged Lands for Renewable Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf was awarded through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management competitive lease auction of the Wind Energy Area offshore of North Carolina. The Lease Area covers 49,536 hectares and is located approximately 44 kilometers offshore of Corolla, North Carolina, (Figure T-1).
At this time, the Company proposes to develop approximately 40 percent of the Lease Area in the northwest corner closest to shore (19,814 hectares; the Wind Development Area). The Project will connect from the electrical service platform (ESP) through offshore export cables (within a designated corridor) and onshore export cables to the new onshore substation in the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, where the renewable electricity generated will be transmitted to the electric grid. The offshore components of the Project, including the wind turbine generators, ESP, and inter-array cables, will be located in federal waters within the Lease Area, while the offshore export cable corridor will traverse both federal and state territorial waters of Virginia.
The Company contracted Tetra Tech, Inc. to deploy an acoustic bat detector during offshore survey activities in 2020 within the Wind Development Area. The acoustic detector was attached to the survey vessel Gerry Bordelon, which operated across the entire Wind Development Area for 77 nights between May and November 2020, to assess the presence/absence of bats in the Wind Development Area. The results from this survey provide an environmental baseline for bats, which will support permitting activities and detailed Project siting for the Project.