Public Service Commission to Conduct Evidentiary Hearings for Offshore Wind Projects

OCEAN CITY, MD – Ocean City officials are pleased with the recent orders issued by the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) to conduct evidentiary hearings in two offshore wind projects impacting Ocean City’s coast. The orders, which were released late last week, came after a nearly six-hour public hearing held by the PSC on January 18, 2020.

More than 1,000 people attended the hearing, which focused on the dramatic change and increased size of the now proposed 12-megawatt turbines. In 2017, when the PSC approved the offshore wind projects by US Wind and Orsted, the proposed turbine size was 4 to 8-megawatt. The current plans released by developers have unilaterally doubled the size of these gigantic structures.

In addition to comments shared at the public hearing, the commission received several hundred written comments from members of the public and found it appropriate to conduct evidentiary hearings regarding impacts related to the change in turbine size. “We want to thank the Public Service Commission for listening to the concerns of the Ocean City community,” stated Ocean City Mayor Rick Meehan. “We support the new jobs these projects create and the economic benefit it will bring to the State of Maryland; however, due to the extreme increase in size, we believe these enormous turbines should be moved further from our shoreline and out of our viewshed.”

To read the orders in full, please visit: https://www.psc.state.md.us/

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