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 renewable energy lease auction of the Wind Energy Area offshore of North Carolina. The Lease Area covers 49,536 hectares and is located approximately 44 kilometers (km) offshore of Corolla, North Carolina.
This In-Air Acoustic Assessment has been completed to demonstrate how the overall Project has been adequately designed to minimize in-air sound impacts to the surrounding community and comply with state and local noise ordinances. A separate Underwater Acoustic Assessment (Appendix P) has been prepared to address the sound impacts associated with the Wind Development Area’s underwater environment. The objectives of this In-Air Acoustic Assessment include identifying noise-sensitive land uses in the area that may be affected by the Project, as well as describing the standards by which the Project will be assessed. Existing conditions were documented through a publicly available ambient sound survey and population density, and Project compliance was assessed through the use of predictive acoustic modeling for construction and operations. If needed, practical measures were proposed to minimize adverse effects associated with the construction and operations of the Project. Mitigation measures are presented to show the feasibility of the Project to meet the specific noise requirements. However, final design may incorporate different mitigation measures in order to achieve the same objective, as demonstrated in this analysis.