In Salem Harbor. Mass., about 20 miles north of Boston, where a 750 MW coal-oil power plant operated for more than six decades, construction of a $300 million offshore wind staging terminal will start soon to support development. projects and reactivate the growth of the wind sector after the recent setbacks.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center last year acquired 42 acres for the terminal in a $30 million purchase of part of the 65-acre former power plant from port developer Crowley Maritime Corp., which bought it in 2022 several years after power generation ended. AECOM is the project design company, with a joint venture of DW White Construction and JF White Contracting Co. appointed general contractor and the works will be completed at the end of 2026.
Funding for the Salem terminal includes a $34 million grant from the US Maritime Administration and about $80 million in state infrastructure funding, as well as private investment. “Crowley will lead the private sector financing and leverage our previously announced partnership with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners for other project financings,” said the marine contractor, which is also the director of the terminal’s construction and will operate it. Crowley did not disclose its stake in the terminal, which would support both fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind projects.
By virtue of a draft labor agreement signed in July, 20% of the workforce will be union apprentices, with targets also set for the hiring of minority workers and women. In February, Salem finalized a $9 million “community benefits” agreement with Crowley that includes nearly $4 million in investment in education.
More port updates
The Salem site would be the state’s second major port terminal facility, with the 30-acre New Bedford Marine Commerce Center that was completed in 2015 also slated to expand, the agency said. ‘state net energy on August 15. The work will include the redevelopment of an existing one. The agency has committed $45 million to the project with completion expected in December 2026. It also plans to apply for federal grants and seek funding from private sources.
Massachusetts, which has set a goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, has also received $389 million in federal funding to expand offshore wind transmission, along with other New England states. Gov. Maura Healey (D) said the state is “well positioned to support the growing offshore wind industry.”
The port expansions come despite project and developer financial problems in recent years due to inflation and supply chain difficulties that have led to restructuring of power sales terms and some cancellations project locations.
But with the Biden Administration continuing its push to reach a 30 GW goal by 2030 for US offshore wind development, the US Department of the Interior in April approved the construction of the New England Wind 2, 6 GW, a two-part project of up to 129. turbines to be built about 30 miles off the state’s southern coast. Financially restructured from two canceled projects, its 791 MW first phase could begin construction next year.
The department also proposed this year the first Gulf of Maine lease sales for offshore wind development in deep waters off Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire, with the potential to generate up to 15 GW, he said. Interior is now assessing the environmental impacts of lease sales at eight locations. No dates have been announced for these yet. Bidders could obtain credits through committed financing for floating wind workforce and supply chain development.
The proposed Gulf of Maine auctions come “at a critical time in New England’s energy transition,” the Sierra Club said in a news release about the auctions earlier this year. The last two coal plants in the region, both located in New Hampshire. , are scheduled to withdraw from the operation in 2025 and 2028.
Heavy lifting terminal
The Salem terminal construction team has obtained city and state permits and is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Maritime Administration to complete environmental assessments, said Graham Tyson, vice president of operations. Crowley harbors.
The facility will include two heavy-lift berths for the delivery of offshore wind components and the mooring of vessels specializing in turbine installations, according to Crowley. Tyson said two heavy-lift berths will be able to dock vessels up to 700 feet long, with enough cargo capacity to handle larger turbine components and support cranes. “Maintain the high load standards of 4,000 and 3,000 [lb per sq ft] in different areas it is also critical to support the storage and lifting operations of sensitive components,” he noted.
Most U.S. ports “were never designed to support the weight of the components that we’re putting together here on site,” Joe Choi, senior director of ports and waterfront structural engineer for Crowley’s Crowley unit, told ENR Wind Services. “The main pier will be supported on piles of steel pipes and a reinforced deck,” he said.
The team will also build a pad supported on concrete piles and on a concrete slab, with dense aggregates to support component storage, Choi said. To manage the large volume of leftover aggregate from the power plant, the contractor team developed a way to crush and cut the material to meet the dense aggregate specifications. “We were able to keep all of this material on site without exporting and importing minimal additional aggregate materials,” Tyson said.
Massachusetts is moving forward despite a work stoppage on the Vineyard Wind 1 project, the first utility-scale offshore wind facility in the state and the United States to begin construction, when a 351-foot-long blade collapse in mid-July of a giant 13.6 MW turbine. , sending debris into the ocean and onto the beaches of Nantucket Island, 20 miles south of Cape Cod.
The megaproject seeks recovery
The event suspended construction of the 62 turbines planned for the project and power production from the 10 now operating while developer and federal investigations continue. On Aug. 13, federal officials allowed Vineyard Wind to continue installation of the turbine “not associated with the blade event,” including 850-foot-tall towers, foundations and nacelles containing generating components of turbines
Turbine maker and builder GE Vernova, whose CEO blamed the outage on a production quality control error, said it is inspecting all of Vineyard Wind’s blades in place and awaiting installation , reviewing thousands of ultrasound images captured during the manufacturing of the blades for “abnormalities.”
Roger Martella, chief sustainability officer at GE Vernova, said the company is physically inspecting the leaves and also using advanced remote-controlled crawling robots equipped with video cameras and fiber-optic sensors that can detect stress in the leaves rotating It also developed a new algorithm that will give “several hours or even days of warning of anything like this happening again,” he said.
Resolve Marine, the contractor that also supported recovery efforts after the March 26 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, is underway to remove debris from the turbine blades. “GE Vernova and Vineyard Wind have developed a comprehensive plan to recover the remaining AW-38 blade in incremental steps,” the companies said.
Steps in the plan include blade rotations “to reduce hanging blade and possible controlled cutting,” removing the blade root still installed in the core, recovering fallen debris from the the turbine and “address” the remains of the vane on the ocean floor. The companies have not disclosed a time frame for the completion of this work. His ongoing investigations and those of the Interior also have unclear completion dates.
“Unfortunately, we expect this to happen again,” said Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, which opposes the accelerated development of offshore wind. “We still don’t know the cause [the] incident But we know that no human structure can withstand the corrosive power of the ocean forever.”
Governor Healey stressed that the state will “find out and get to the bottom of what happened. [at the Vineyard Wind site]. But let’s be clear about this: we’re very invested in this industry.”
It’s unclear whether the blade rupture will affect the project’s existing lease at the New Bedford terminal, which expires Dec. 31 with a 90-day extension option. According to a local report, the developers of the SouthCoast Wind project signed a facility lease with the state in April, with an investment of $15 million made and plans to take control in 2029.
Meanwhile, bidders are awaiting news next month on new project proposals submitted jointly in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, including the 1.2GW Vineyard Wind 2 project and the 1.2GW SouthCoast Wind project . Avangrid submitted several proposals for the 791-MW New England Wind 1 and 1.08-GW New England Wind 2, and Orsted proposed the 1.18-GW Starboard Wind project in Connecticut and Rhode Island alone.
