Clearing the Airwaves: No-cost resources for mitigating wind turbine radar interference

As offshore wind development expands along U.S. coastlines, ensuring turbine compatibility with existing ocean monitoring systems becomes increasingly critical. High-frequency (HF) radar, used by the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Enterprise to measure ocean surface currents and waves, can be disrupted by wind turbine installations. This poses challenges for marine safety, environmental monitoring, and permitting.

Clearing the Airwaves will introduce the Wind Turbine-Radar Interference Mitigation (WTRIM) initiative, a collaborative effort between industry and stakeholders that addresses radar interference through publicly funded solutions. Mary Ford, Deputy Director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS), will explain WTRIM’s role in the offshore wind permitting process and outline practical mitigation strategies. MARACOOS is one of eleven U.S. government-certified regional partnerships for ocean and coastal data. 

In the second half of the session, Kelly Knee, Executive Director of Ocean Science at RPS, will lead an interactive demonstration of these no-cost resources, including OceansMap—a free data visualization tool designed to support offshore wind developers. OceansMap integrates metocean data and publicly accessible developer datasets to inform operational decisions across the offshore wind lifecycle. Attendees will gain hands-on experience using OceansMap to solve real-world scenarios and explore how these tools can streamline development while safeguarding radar integrity.