Page 43: of Marine News Magazine (October 2021)

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Feature

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Offshore Wind

America, and its partner ? shermen in Rhode Island, Con- cess include Ocean Wind (1.1 MW, offshore New Jersey) necticut and New York, to support safe navigation around and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, the in and around South Fork Wind and two other proj- which could see as many as 200 turbines, producing 2,600 ects: the 704 MW Revolution Wind project (online in MW, or more, of electricity. 2025) serving Rhode Island and Connecticut, and the With project approvals comes vessel construction. Instal- 924 MW Sunrise Wind project, located east of Montauk, lation vessels attract headlines, with their hefty price-tags which will serve New York. Sea Services North America and limited supply (in the face of demand for installation in effect, puts ? sherman to work “… provid[ing] scouting for 1,500 + turbines in U.S. waters and many more inter- vessels and monitoring services to assist …project research nationally in the coming decade). Dominion Energy, the vessels in successfully locating, identifying and avoiding owner of the Coastal Virginia project, inked a deal with a ? shermen’s gear during pre-construction marine surveys. lessor consortium (after laying out upfront payments prior

This partnership helped improve communication and co- to the December 2020 keel laying) to complete construc- existence during the surveys.” tion for a Jones Act compliant wind turbine installation

Ørsted and Eversource had suggested that more col- vessel (WTIV) at Brownsville, Texas shipbuilder Keppel laboration might be in the cards, at developments Ocean AmFELS. The price of the WTIV, named Charybdis,

Wind (with Ørsted partnering with PSEG in a 1.1 GW which will work for Dominion out of Norfolk on CVOW, offshore southern New Jersey) and Skipjack Wind Farms after an anticipated 2023 delivery, is around $600 million (with its ? rst phase, 120 MW, serving the Delmarva Pen- including debt of roughly $550 million. insula, coming online in 2026). Cooperation with the The existing U.S. projects saw workarounds with tur- ? shing ? eets is also key to delib- erations in Maine in advance of the

Federal leasing process, where poli- ticians have inched toward a deal keeping offshore wind further out from the shore.

Developers of these and other off- shore installations are pushing ahead with a plethora of projects on the path to gaining requisite approvals and set to come online in the mid-2020s.

The initial phase of Vineyard Wind (800 MW, a partnership of Copen- hagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Avangrid Renewables), which fell victim to regulatory inertia dur- ing 2020, gained environmental approvals from Bureau of Energy

Management (BOEM) and other agencies. The Sunrise Wind project east of Montauk will be the subject of public sessions beginning in Sep- tember, which will guide a subse-

Edison Chouest quent Federal environmental review, in advance of further approvals from

Interior and Commerce. Other proj-

Offshore ects moving through BOEM’s pro-

Edison Chouest Offshore www.marinelink.com MN 43|