Page 47: of Marine News Magazine (October 2021)

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Feature

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Offshore Wind

Dominion Energy

Keppel AmFELS is currently building the ? rst ever Jones Act WTIV.

Keppel AmFELS ing out of New London, has been hired for Ørsted and

Eversource’s multiple projects east of Long Island. A trio of

U.K registered vessels, Ocean Researcher, Ocean Endeav- our and Ocean Observer, have been working off the New

Jersey coast for Ørsted on its Ocean Wind and Skipjack

Wind projects. Tidewater’s DP-2 PSV Regulus has also been working in the same vicinity, on the Atlantic Shores project (a joint venture of Shell and EDF Renewables).

Deeper and bigger are watchwords of the business on its path to “30 by 30”. Eneti, the WTIV behemoth, ex- plained in an August, 2021 presentation, “Offshore wind turbines are continuously increasing in size and capacity.

While the largest deployed model is currently 9.5 MW, models up to 14-15 MW are set to be commercialized over the next few years,” adding that “Offshore wind installa- tions are also moving further from shore and into deeper water where better quality wind resources are available.”

They also noted, “Most projects commissioned through 2018 have been within 50 kilometers of shore, however, several large projects in the pipeline are 100 kilometers or more from shore.”

Looking ahead, BOEM is in early stages of soliciting comments on a project offshore northern California. Be- cause water depths in the potential lease site, 15 nautical miles out in the Paci? c, range from 300 feet to 700 feet, ? oating turbines (assembled shoreside and then towed out to sea) would be deployed. Offshore Maine would also www.marinelink.com MN 47|