Staten Island to add offshore wind staging port, an effort to fight the climate change crisis | amNewYork - amNY
Staten Island to add offshore wind staging port, an effort to fight the climate change crisis | amNewYork
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The City Planning Commission (CPC) voted to approve the Arthur Kill Terminal, a project that has been on continuous development since 2018.
The Arthur Kill Terminal is an offshore wind staging port on the South Shore of Staten Island.
According to Arthur Kill’s official website, it “will support the timely and efficient installation of thousands of megawatts of offshore wind energy capacity in the region, which will displace aging fossil fuel-based generation and the negative environmental impacts from fossil fuel energy generation.”
By 2035, New York hopes to have built 9000 megawatts of offshore wind energy and by 2050 New York will need approximately 20,000 megawatts of sustainable energy.
Back in October 2023, the New York government proposed a new 10-Point Action Plan to fight the climate change crisis.
According to Action 3 of the plan, the “New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will launch an accelerated renewable energy procurement process for both offshore and onshore renewable energy projects, aiming to backfill any contracted projects which are terminated.” This project brings the state, one step closer to that goal.
The terminal is also expected to boost the local economy by creating approximately 600 construction jobs, more than 150 operations jobs on site and 370 indirect jobs.
“Arthur Kill Terminal has been working for years to ensure that the project will result in hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in Staten Island with minimal impacts to local residents and businesses and we’re proud to have secured the Commission’s support,” said in a written statement Boone Davis, CEO of the Arthur Kill Terminal.
Construction is expected to begin early next year and wrap up in two years.
Additionally, the project has pledged to support marginalized communities and promises to minimal disturbance to local residents during and after construction.
According to the official website, by partnering with union labor organizations, “providing offshore wind and maritime-related education opportunities to students, particularly those from disadvantaged communities,” working close with advocates for environmental justice, ensuring local residents and businesses are not affected by traffic and noise, the project hopes to fulfill the promised social benefits.
In the upcoming years, more than 2,000 turbines are expected to be installed in the U.S.
The City Council is expected to vote on the assembly port where turbines will be built on August 8 of this year.
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.