U.S. offshore wind projects test the strength of Joe Biden’s promise of green jobs

New Bedford, Massachusetts, was once a wealthy center of the energy industry, sending ships to hunt sperm whales whose oil lit 19th-century lamps.

The small town is now among the northeastern states of the United States poorer and seek an energy renaissance: as a place to gather parts for huge wind complexes planned in the ocean waters.

The White House is soon expected to approve Vineyard Wind, the first commercial-scale offshore wind energy project in the United States. The assembly of its 64 high turbines would give New Bedford an economic boost.

The project will also be an early test of President Joe Biden’s goal of creating “well-paid union jobs” while halving U.S. carbon emissions in that decade. committed at its international climate summit this week.

Offering well-paid jobs is a prerequisite for Biden goal of a carbon-free energy sector in 2035. Its agenda threatens fossil fuel workers who generally pay more and are more unionized than solar or wind power workers, according to data from the U.S. Energy and Employment Report. Lasting changes in energy policy are likely to need congressional support, including lawmakers like coal-rich West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin.

The offshore wind sector will be a completely new industry in the United States, with rows of white turbines that will send energy to coastal markets. The Biden administration established one last month vision for the installation of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, which will create 77,000 jobs, approximately the same number of jobs that are connected to the European offshore wind sector, where it is already installed. len 25 GW capacity, according to the trade association WindEurope.

“There’s a great opportunity in offshore wind,” said Philip Jordan, vice president of BW Research studying energy use. “He’s a potential job creator, very big.”

Most jobs are dedicated to building wind farms, rather than operating them. An analysis by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth of the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind project estimated that 83% of the 1,180 full-time jobs required would be temporary jobs in construction.

Still, the total number of projects already underway could provide years of construction work, Jordan said. East Coast states have already approved almost 12 GW of offshore wind power purchases from developers led by European companies such as Orsted of Denmark, Equinor of Norway and in the case of Vineyard Wind, a subsidiary of Iberdrola of Spain and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, enough to supply about 4m of housing.

The lifetime cost of new offshore wind projects fell as the industry flourished in Europe in the last decade, but remains well above terrestrial, utility-scale solar wind power plants or of natural gas combined cycle, according to the Energy Information Administration. States with their own carbon targets have driven demand for offshore wind projects through public procurement.

States consider offshore wind energy more than just a source of cleanup electricity. They chose developers to present plans to hire unionized labor, use locally made parts, and help poor or polluted neighborhoods.

“One of the main tensions is how states balance the desire to locate and maximize economic benefits, with the cost of energy supplied,” said David Purcell, director of the Renewables Consulting Group.

Massachusetts utilities will purchase energy from Vineyard Wind on the terms set forth by a state law that does not contain special employment contracts. The last offshore wind farm in the state request for quotations gives a weight of 70% to the price of energy and 30% of the economic benefits, including promises to use ports like New Bedford, where parts of wind turbines will be ordered and loaded on ships transferring to construction sites maritime.

“We have pursued offshore wind power because we see it as a generational opportunity to attract capital to New Bedford, at a time when it is very difficult to do so for cities that are not part of the big metros,” said Jon Mitchell, mayor of the city of 95,000.

New York took a different approach, consolidating union work into law. The state legislature passed a bill this month that required it renewable energy companies to sign contracts with construction unions or offer “prevailing wages” that usually set a union benchmark. Companies must promise not to join trade union campaigns by signing “labor peace” agreements.

Gary LaBarbera, chairman of the New York State Office of Building and Construction Council, praised the provisions, saying they would ensure well-trained and highly-skilled workers kept projects on schedule and on budget. . “I think the impact on costs will be neutral,” he said.

It will take years to prove their claim in a state with historically high construction costs of public works. New York will pay the first two offshore projects contracted a premium of $ 25 per hour MW above wholesale electricity prices, although the state government said the projects would add less than a dollar a month to customer invoices.

Gina McCarthy, United States Climate Adviser, he spoke in March, “massive turbines that are actually made in the United States” and “special ships that need to install these new structures” will be built in U.S. ports. But the federal government must first approve a critical mass of marine projects for its vision to come true.

Leading turbine manufacturers General Electric, Siemens Gamesa and Vestas have no offshore wind plants in the US. The more than 800-foot-tall Haliade-X turbines selected by Vineyard Wind are manufactured in France by GE, although the company is headquartered in Boston.

“We are excited to see the momentum of offshore wind power in the US,” GE said. “We will continue to assess market conditions, including the presence of the type of sustained demand over time that is needed to ensure that any facility is used to the fullest, to determine the best way to support our customers.”

With some turbine rotors longer than a football field, the size of offshore wind equipment could force investment in port cities to handle equipment too large to move them over rails or roads.

New York’s contractual terms led Equinor to choose the port of the state capital, Albany, for the manufacture of turbine towers for its Empire Wind and Beacon Wind projects, which are jointly owned by BP. The state spokeswoman said the current salary and project requirements for the project will apply to the port.

New Jersey pretends convert a plot next to the pier into a “wind farm” where equipment for Orsted’s Ocean Wind and other projects can be equipped. EEW, based in Germany, recently started a turbine base manufacturing plant in a New Jersey river city known primarily for its oil refinery.

The shipment of turbine components from the coast to the sea is complicated by a 101-year law known as Jones law, which requires all ships traveling off the coast of the United States to be built and owned by an American company. No wind turbine installation vessel meets this criterion, although the Virginia-based company Dominion Energy ordered one for $ 500 million.

Meanwhile, Vineyard Wind plans to hire union seafarers to pilot American-flagged powerboats from New Bedford to a Belgian-owned installation vessel that will rise to its feet on the seabed. .

“It simply came to our notice then. Every time you handle these big components, you add time, you add costs, you add safety requirements, ”said Jamie MacDonald, Boston’s chief operating officer at Xodus, an energy consultancy.

Xodus is among the companies looking for an opportunity in US offshore wind. Headquartered in Scotland, the company opened its Boston office last year and has now hired staff in New Bedford.

“I think there’s an opportunity to take advantage of the United States,” MacDonald said. “We have seven turbines currently installed and they want to reach 30 GW by 2030. The pipeline, the opportunity, is there for them to be truly world leaders in this.”

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