County council defers vote on application for wind power substation 

“Most people in Sussex County do not want these offshore windmills.”

Sussex County Council convened a hearing on Tuesday, July 30, to consider a conditional-use application from Renewable Redevelopment LLC, a U.S. Wind subsidiary, for a 140-acre electric power substation adjacent to the current Indian River Power Plant near Dagsboro. After three hours of testimony and “new information brought to our attention,” the council deferred their vote.

The site of the proposed wind power substation is off Iron Branch Road, in wetlands governed by the Coastal Zone Act. The property measures 13.3 acres, with a significant amount of trees that would need to be cleared and removed to accommodate the electric substation, which would feed energy to the power grid.

The proposed interconnection with Delaware Power & Light would power 770,000 homes in Maryland. The Sussex County Council heard nearly three hours of testimony on Tuesday, with all of the speakers arrayed against permitting the substation and expressing concerns.

Speakers asked, “What’s in this for Sussex County?” citing the mission of the county government to serve the “health, prosperity and welfare of the residents of Sussex County.” The speakers also expressed concern about the notice for the public hearing, claiming that U.S. Wind’s use of a development subsidiary – Renewable Redevelopment – as the applicant did not provide transparency for the zoning request.

Caesar Rodney Institute Director David T. Stevenson, Fenwick Island Mayor Natalie Madgeburger and former Superior Court Judge Jane Brady – who served for 10 years as the first female Attorney General in Delaware – were among the dissenters.

CRI’s Stevenson said, “The federal government report this week says that these turbines will dominate the horizon. We ask that you delay or deny this proposal to give us more time for consideration. There is no reason to rush a decision.”

“Most people in Sussex County do not want these offshore windmills,” he asserted. “We will file a lawsuit against this offshore wind project after this Friday,” Aug. 2, “when the BOEM environmental impact assessment is published in the federal register.”

“We believe the applicant obscured this zoning application by calling it by another name,” said Stevenson. “U.S. Wind is not considering the negative impact directly on Sussex County. The net effect of a zoning approval today is we will be moving forward headlong into building offshore wind.”

Madgeburger asserted that the U.S. Wind project is being pushed by the Biden Administration.

“This project is being pushed by ‘Big Washington’ and by Dover state government, and now you have the local power of a veto. Our greatest gift is pristine beaches and the region’s coastal resources.”

Brady also objected, stating, “You cannot buy off the State and you can’t buy our coastal towns with the $40 million proposed ACT proffer money. This is Maryland’s problem, and U.S. Wind is just looking for a cheaper route.”

She said the initial proposed site of the power substation for the wind-farm project was rejected by the State of Maryland and that Delaware became the closest alternative for the power generation and transmission substation.

Gener Gotiangco, U.S. Wind senior director of energy and development, is an energy industry professional with more than 30 years of experience in development, operations, asset management and construction, and he served as an expert witness for U.S. Wind. He has been engaged as an advisor to several North American power generation companies and now works for the U.S. Wind development company.

Gotiangco explained how power transmission works: “There are transformers to change the voltage – which is a critical component – from high voltage to a lower transmission voltage. There are circuit breakers, isolators, a cooling station, and it’s a high-tech complex.”

The plant will upgrade the power grid in Delaware, also creating construction jobs in the area, he said.

When pressed by council members, U.S. Wind was not able to identify a direct benefit to Sussex County when asked where the power was to be directed, besides to Maryland.

“It’s not identifiable where the energy is going once it is interconnected with PJM and the DP+L power system,” said Jim Fuqua, a local attorney representing U.S. Wind at the hearing. “The control building will be operated remotely, and there will be no regular employees on the site, except for periodic security checks,” testified the U.S. Wind representative.

Gotiangco said there “should be some improvement in Delaware’s electrical grid capability and reduced congestion costs here” for power.

“There is $40 million going to the Association of Coastal Towns. There is $253 million in savings to the ratepayers here in Delaware,” representatives said.

Nancy Sopko, an external relations spokesperson for U.S. Wind, noted in a statement that the project already had federal environmental approval: “BOEM’s Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) reviewed a comprehensive array of environmental and socioeconomic impacts from U.S. Wind’s proposed project, which is included as the Proposed Action and ‘preferred alternative’ in the FEIS.”

“U.S. Wind designed the project with resource protection in mind by avoiding wetlands, precluding construction onshore during the recreational season and during sensitive nesting and spawning times nearshore, burying infrastructure on land, and hundreds more measures. U.S. Wind’s project plans as the preferred alternative means that we’ll be able to develop our entire federal lease area and maximize delivery of offshore wind energy to Delmarva.”

U.S. Wind representatives for the development company stated that “nothing was hidden” throughout the application process. Representatives of the Renewable Redevelopment firm said it is “very common to have a subsidiary company for project development, and we advertised this hearing as the entity that made the application.”