'Put Maryland to work' | US Wind wins $47m grant for Sparrows Point Steel monopile maker

Maryland-based developer US Wind along with Baltimore County won a $47m grant from the federal Maritime Administration (Marad) to establish an offshore wind manufacturing and staging hub at the Tradepoint Atlantic logistics centre.

US Wind, majority owned by Italian energy firm Renexia, is developing Sparrows Point Steel for monopile and tower manufacturing and project staging to support its 1GW of capacity in its MarWin and Momentum Wind arrays.

“We are working hard to bring offshore wind energy to Maryland and this award gives a much-needed boost to our efforts to establish an offshore wind supply chain right here in Baltimore,” said Jeff Grybowski, Sparrows Point Steel CEO.

“Our plans for Sparrows Point Steel will put Marylanders to work, especially union workers and minority owned businesses.”

The 100-acre (40-ha) site is the former location of the US’ largest steelworks that at its height employed 33,000 workers but closed in 2012 after a lengthy decline.

Along with manufacturing, the site will have significant upgraded quayside and drydock capacity, “making it one of the most competitive offshore wind marshalling hubs on the East Coast”, the developer said.

The state awarded 2GW of capacity split between US Wind and Orsted’s Skipjack projects in its rounds 1 and 2.

The facility will eventually have a yearly capacity of 100 monopiles and is part of the developer’s commitment to sourcing at least 19% of total procurement in Maryland for a total exceeding $570m.

This is well-below prices for projects that were cancelled as being unfeasible due to high inflation and interest rates and supply chain turmoil.

The grants were awarded under Marad’s $660m Port Infrastructure Development Programme (PIDP) funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.

Salem Wind Port in Massachusetts was awarded $34m under the PIDP, along with $20m provided to Virginia’s Portsmouth Marine Terminal.