Thirty acres at the Port of New Bedford in Massachusetts are slated to be redeveloped as an offshore wind marine terminal to support projects along the East Coast.
Foss Maritime is partnering with investors Cannon Street Holdings LLC to redevelop the site, which is near offshore wind projects Vineyard Wind 1 and Mayflower Wind.
The New Bedford Foss Marine Terminal, as the site will be known, is intended to provide storage and laydown yards for equipment and materials, berth facilities for tug and barge operations, and host crew transfer vessel and service operation vessel support services.
The terminal, previously occupied by Eversource, is expected to open in March 2023.
Jason Childs, president and CEO of Foss Maritime’s parent company Saltchuk Marine, said the planned terminal is “perfectly situated to support offshore wind projects on the East Coast.”
After completion, the New Bedford Foss Marine Terminal is unlikely to sit idle for long.
The Vineyard Wind 1 project, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, celebrated its groundbreaking in Barnstable, Massachusetts last November.
The 800 MW project is 12 nautical miles offshore Martha’s Vineyard, and is expected to become one of the first commercial-scale offshore wind farms in operation in the U.S. when it is completed.
The project is expected to begin delivering power to the grid in 2023.
Mayflower Wind’s construction plans are currently being reviewed by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The developer, a joint venture between Shell and Ocean Winds, said the lease area off Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket has a potential development capacity of 2.4 GW.
In a statement, Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller commended Foss Maritime’s contribution to the U.S. offshore wind supply chain, which is beginning to take shape up and down the Eastern Seabord.
Earlier this month, Equinor and bp said they plan to invest up to $250 million to build an offshore wind staging and assembly hub at a Brooklyn, New York, port.
Equinor and bp are 50-50 partners in both the Empire Wind and Beacon Wind projects offshore New York. The Empire Wind and Beacon Wind leases — acquired in 2017 and 2019, respectively — each have a potential installed capacity of 2 GW.
The Brooklyn offshore wind hub could also support other projects in the region, the companies said. In February, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auctioned six leases in the New York Bight area offshore New York and New Jersey for a record $4.37 billion.
And last year, Siemens Gamesa announced that it would join Dominion Energy and Ørsted in developing an offshore wind manufacturing hub at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth, Virginia.
The blade finishing facility would represent a $200 million investment and create 300 around jobs.
In August 2021, Dominion Energy reached an agreement with the Port of Virginia for staging and assembly of its 2,600-megawatt offshore wind project — the U.S.’s largest commercial offshore wind project in development.
“This location at the Port of Virginia is second to none,” Dominion’s Blue told Renewable Energy World at the time of the announcement. “It has deep water access, no overhead restrictions, a strong, experienced maritime workforce, and sufficient space for these large wind infrastructure components. It is perfectly situated to serve the Virginia offshore wind project and grow the domestic supply chain needed to complete other offshore wind projects in the United States.”
Around the same time, the first subsea HVDC cable facility in the U.S. opened in Charleston, South Carolina. French fiber optic cable manufacturer Nexans partnered to deliver 1,000 km of cables to Ørsted and Eversource for North American offshore wind farm development until 2027.
A year after President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for a review of American supply chains, the Department of Energy (DOE) released what it called its first-ever comprehensive assessment of the U.S. clean energy supply chain.
Financial support will also be needed to spur offshore wind port and vessel infrastructure, both of which are in their infancy. The federal government can also help by prioritizing financing of offshore wind ports and vessels through the Department of Transportation Maritime Administration programs and the DOE Loan Programs Office.
The Department of Commerce will present preliminary findings under this investigation on August 30. On that date it will publish a preliminary duty rate for importers of all products, which will serve as the basis for deposits until a final decision on January 26, 2023 (which can be extended to April 1, 2023). If duties are retroactive, this preliminary rate will apply back to the starting date of the duties as determined by the Secretary.
