The first US-built offshore wind service ship reaches a milestone - Electrek.co
The first US-built offshore wind service ship reaches a milestone
The first-ever US-built offshore wind service operations vessel (SOV) is marking its 50% completion milestone this week.
Offshore wind service operations vessels serve as floating accommodations for offshore wind technicians who will work at sea over the life of the wind farms, servicing and maintaining the turbines. The SOV also holds all of the tools the technicians need.
Louisiana-based shipbuilding company Edison Chouest Offshore is manufacturing the first US SOV, the 260-foot Eco Edison, in Terrebonne Parish on the Gulf Coast, and it will be delivered to Danish wind giant Ørsted and New England energy provider Eversource in 2024. There are 400 workers constructing the SOV, and the Eco Edison will house 60 wind technicians.
The SOV includes special features like a “walk-to-work” motion-compensated gangway that allows technicians to easily and safely access the wind turbines. A smaller “daughter” craft onboard can be deployed to maneuver crew across the wind farms.
The Eco Edison is a significant US milestone because it will be the first Jones Act-qualified wind farm SOV in the US. The century-old Jones Act is a federal law that restricts water transport of cargo between US ports to ships that are US-owned, crewed, registered, and constructed.
The Eco Edison will be sent to Port Jefferson, New York, where it will serve South Fork Wind, Sunrise Wind, and Revolution Wind. Once online, those three offshore wind farms combined are expected to generate about 1.7 GW of energy, which will power over 1 million homes.
Ørsted’s first cohort of US offshore wind turbine technicians is currently completing extensive training, preparing to begin work offshore when South Fork Wind is completed later this year.
Vessels from other ports in the Gulf of Mexico are already supporting the South Fork Wind project’s construction.
Read more: The US’ first commercial offshore wind farm kicks off turbine construction
Photo: Ørsted and Eversource
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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.