Clean Energy Future News

Offshore wind developer Vineyard Offshore announced that Rick Musiol, Jr. has joined the company as Director of External Affairs and Community Engagement. In this newly created position, Musiol will lead community engagement and corporate citizenship programs everywhere Vineyard Offshore has a presence.“As Vineyard Offshore expands its work on the East and West Coasts, our top priority is to be an active and engaged member of the community,” said Christian Scorzoni, Chief External Affairs Officer for Vineyard Offshore.

New York officials on Thursday awarded provisional contracts to two proposed offshore wind projects under a program meant to support the embattled industry and keep the state's clean energy goals on track.The state selected a planned 810-megawatt project, Empire Wind 1, (developed by Equinor) and Sunrise Wind, a planned 924-megawatt project (developed by Orsted and Eversource).The closely watched solicitation by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)…

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has set out plans to invest $4.75 million to establish a new national center of excellence to accelerate offshore wind deployment across the United States.The Academic Center for Reliability and Resilience of Offshore Wind (ARROW), led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst with approximately 40 partners, will focus on workforce development, targeted research, and partnerships and strategies to advance offshore wind development.As offshore…

The first turbine has been installed at the South Fork Wind Farm offshore New York, developer Ørsted announced on Monday.The first of South Fork Wind’s 12 Siemens Gamesa wind turbine generators was hoisted into place by the offshore construction team at the project site 35 miles off Montauk, N.Y. Van Oord’s offshore installation vessel, the Aeolus, is installing the turbines. Turbine installation involves using a crane to place the steel turbine tower onto the foundation. The nacelle and rotor are then installed on top of the tower.

The Biden administration on Friday unveiled a plan to phase down oil and gas auctions in federal waters with the release of a long-awaited leasing schedule that includes a maximum of three sales in the Gulf of Mexico through 2029.The Interior Department's plan includes by far the lowest number of sales since the agency began producing Congressionally-mandated five-year oil and gas leasing schedules in 1980. Previous programs have ranged between 11 and 41 sales, according to Interior's U.S.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said Monday it had completed its environmental review of the proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project.“The completion of our environmental review marks another step towards a clean energy future—one that benefits communities and co-exists with other ocean users,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “The best available science and knowledge shared by Tribes, other government agencies, local communities, ocean users…

It’s a big deal when a U.S. president visits an American shipyard, and these trips always send a message. When President Obama spoke at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding in 2013, he warned of the consequences of sequestration. President Trump’s 2020 speech at Fincantieri Marinette Marine touted a $5.5 billion naval contract that gave a welcome boost to the Wisconsin shipyard and its supply chain partners. Most recently, President Biden traveled to Philadelphia’s Philly Shipyard…

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on Tuesday approved the construction of a 704-megawatt (MW) wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, the fourth major offshore wind project the agency has greenlit as the Biden administration tries to meet a goal of bringing 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power online by 2030.The Revolution Wind project about 15 nautical miles southeast of Point Judith, R.I. is being developed by Eversource and Ørsted as Rhode Island and Connecticut's first utility-scale offshore wind farm…

Avangrid, a U.S.-based subsidiary of the Spanish renewable energy giant Iberdrola, on Monday shared a photo of the completed Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind substation.This is the first offshore wind substation installed in the U.S. and will serve the country's first large-scale offshore wind farm - Vineyard Wind.DEME Offshore used its flagship vessel, Orion, to install the 3,000-ton Vineyard Wind 1 substation.The offshore substation serves to collect the generated electricity from 62 wind turbines and sends the power through an export cable and into the regional electricity grid.Once completed…

President Joe Biden traveled to Philadelphia on Thursday to attend a steel cutting ceremony for Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation's new offshore wind rock placement vessel, touting his administration’s clean energy agenda and job creation efforts as the U.S. builds up its offshore wind industry. "The clean energy future we’re building all across America will be transformational,” Biden said during the ceremony at Philly Shipyard. “Thousands of families will rely on good jobs these projects create…

The installation of the first monopiles and transition pieces has kicked off for the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States - the Vineyard Wind 1.“We can finally say it – as of today, there is ‘steel in the water,’” said Klaus S. Moeller, CEO of Vineyard Wind, the company developing the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, located in a federal wind energy area 15 miles south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, and 35 miles from mainland Massachusetts.Vineyard…

The U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday named Elizabeth Klein, a lawyer who worked in the Obama and Clinton administrations, to head the bureau that oversees offshore oil, gas and wind development.Klein will take over for the current head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Amanda Lefton, who has resigned from the post effective Jan.

President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday said it would hold the first-ever sale of offshore wind development rights off the coast of California on Dec. 6, a big step forward in expanding the nascent U.S. industry to Pacific waters.The announcement is the latest in a government push to put wind turbines along U.S. coastlines, creating a new domestic jobs engine that is also designed to help wean the nation off fossil fuels and combat climate change.The sale, which the Department of Interior had said it planned to hold before the end of this year…

Crowley has completed the purchase of 42 acres in Salem, Massachusetts, the latest milestone toward the development of the state’s second major offshore wind port terminal.The Salem Harbor Wind Terminal is a public-private partnership between Crowley and the City of Salem, with AVANGRID serving as the port’s anchor tenant through its Commonwealth Wind and Park City Wind projects.The terminal will be a logistics and operations center for turbine pre-assembly, transportation, staging activities and storage of assembly components.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced next steps to bring offshore wind energy to the Gulf of Maine. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has made available a Request for Interest (RFI) and Request for Competitive Interest (RFCI) in the Federal Register for public comment.“President Biden has set ambitious goals to address the climate crisis, and in response the Interior Department is taking historic steps to develop a robust and sustainable clean energy future,” said Secretary Deb Haaland.

The U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) last Friday designated offshore wind vessels as vessels of national interest making them eligible for financial support through the Title XI Federal Ship Financing Program (Title XI). The Federal Ship Financing Program - commonly referred to as "Title XI" based on the part of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 that established the program - provides for a full faith and credit guarantee by the United States Government to promote the growth and modernization of the U.S. merchant marine and U.S.

Americraft Marine, a maritime subsidiary of the Libra Group, announced it has acquired U.S. shipyard St. Johns Ship Building.Based in Palatka, Fla., near Jacksonville, St. Johns Ship Building performs new construction and repair of a wide variety of steel and aluminum vessels, including ferries, tugs, deck and tank barges, landing crafts, and general cargo vessels. It is also one several U.S. shipyards currently building vessels that support and service offshore wind farms.With facilities including a storm-protected 100-acre inland campus with a 850-ton floating drydock, St.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) would conduct an environmental review of the first proposed wind energy project offshore Maryland, in line with the country's goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.The Department will this week publish a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by US Wind, LLC (US Wind).

A public-private partnership will aim to establish Salem Harbor as the Massachusetts’ second major offshore wind port.Vineyard Wind, set to be the first ever commercial scale offshore wind farm in the U.S., will work with Crowley Maritime Corporation and the City of Salem for the project.The agreement, part of the “Commonwealth Wind” proposal, is contingent upon the company winning an award by the State of Massachusetts, which is currently evaluating offshore wind procurement bids.Earlier this month…

RWE Renewables, a German offshore wind giant is looking to build an offshore wind supply chain in Louisiana, one of the top U.S. oil and gas producing states. RWE said last week it would collaborate with Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.) and GNOwind Alliance to build a program that will accelerate the engagement of Louisiana's supply chain with offshore wind and benefit all Louisianians. Greater New Orleans, Inc. is the regional economic development nonprofit organization serving the 10-parish region of Southeast Louisiana.Over the next six months, GNO, Inc.

C-Job Naval Architects have designed a liquid hydrogen tanker that the company says will revolutionize the renewable energy market. "The tanker concept, developed in partnership with LH2 Europe, is a critical element in realizing a green end-to-end liquid hydrogen supply chain," C-Job Naval Architects said."LH2 Europe will use the abundant renewable electricity in Scotland to produce green hydrogen and market it at a competitive price with diesel. The new tanker will transport the liquid hydrogen to terminals in Germany…

Governor Charlie Baker, Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Secretary Bethany Card, and Massachusetts Clean Energy Center CEO (MassCEC) Jennifer Daloisio joined Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) officials for a Global Wind Organization (GWO) training demonstration at the Academy. Nearly three years since helping launch MMA’s first-in-the-nation offshore wind crew transfer training facility, Governor Baker returned to observe a wind and life raft training and highlight the investments the Baker-Polito Administration is proposing to expand the offshore wind workforce further.

Physical activity to construct America's first Jones Act-qualified wind farm service operations vessel (SOV) has kicked off on the U.S. Gulf Coast.The vessel, Eco Edison, is being built at Edison Chouest Offshore shipyards in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida for planned delivery in 2024. Once complete, the vessel will immediately provide operational support out of Port Jefferson, New York for Ørsted and Eversource’s joint venture offshore wind portfolio, which includes South Fork Wind, Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind.