Crowley to Open Offshore Wind Office in Northern California - gCaptain
Crowley to Open Offshore Wind Office in Northern California
Jacksonville, Florida-based Crowley is set to open a Wind Services office in Eureka, California as part of its efforts to develop an offshore wind terminal at the Port of Humboldt Bay in Northern California.
The announcement of the new office will be made during an open house event later this month in partnership with the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce. The company aims to become a leader in supporting renewable energy from offshore wind by collaborating with the community and port in the region.
Last year, Crowley has signed an agreement with the Port of Humboldt Bay to exclusively negotiate to be the developer and operator of the Humboldt Bay Offshore Wind Heavy Lift Marine Terminal. Through its Wind Services group, the company will lease and serve as the port’s developer of the planned terminal in Samoa, Humboldt County. The facility will support the manufacturing, installation, and operation of floating offshore wind platforms, the use of large heavy cargo vessels, and provide crewing and marshaling services in the Pacific waters.
The Humboldt offshore wind areas are projected to provide 1.6 GW of energy, capable of supplying power to up to 1.6 million homes.
Completion of permitting and design of the new terminal is expected in mid-2024.
In December, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held its first offshore wind lease auction on the U.S. West Coast, receiving high bids totaling $757.1 million. The lease sale offered five lease areas covering 373,268 total acres off of Morro Bay on the central coast and Humboldt County. Combined, the areas have the potential to produce over 4.6 gigawatts of offshore wind energy.
Humboldt Bay will be Crowley’s second dedicated U.S. wind service terminal project, following a project in Salem, Massachusetts, which is currently in the design and engineering phase.
The State of California aims to create at least 5 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030.
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.