Block Island Wind Farm Acoustic Monitoring

A collaborative effort with the Bureau of Energy Management and other Federal and state agencies to study and monitor the construction and operation of offshore wind turbines.

The Block Island Wind Farm is the first offshore wind farm in the United States. Many environmental studies have been conducted in Europe in conjunction with pile driving for offshore wind turbine construction, but this fieldwork is the first to be performed in conjunction with the U.S. The following images show the location of the Block Island wind turbines (left pane) and also the areas of proposed offshore wind turbine sites (right pane) in the Northeast U.S.

In 2015, WHOI acousticians and collaborators monitored pile driving noise from platform construction (left pane) of the five initial wind turbines located at Block Island and also continue to monitor the sound of wind turbines (right pane) that went operational in 2016. The turbines used in the Block Island Wind Farm are five GE Haliade 150-6 megawatt wind turbines each with a 150 meter diameter rotor.

The data collected will be used in sound propagation studies and modeling to determine sound exposure from the turbine construction and operations and correlate that data to ship tracks, wind speed, wind farm blade speed and power production. The data will also be used to investigate sound exposure levels for fish studies and marine mammal impacts.

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Last updated: August 9, 2017