Wind

'Stake through the heart'| US offshore wind leaders slam House vessel crewing bill

Executives of 24 top corporations assert provision added to Coast Guard authorisation bill could cripple development in America's fastest growing renewable energy sector

The Charybdis.
The Charybdis.Foto: Dominion.
  • Tim Ferry

Executives of 24 top corporations doing business in the fast-emerging US offshore wind sector sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to exclude language in the Coast Guard Authorisation Act of 2022 that they assert would potentially cripple the industry.

The House of Representatives-passed bill that would require all vessels operating on the US outer continental shelf (OCS) be manned either by crew from the same nation as the flag under which the vessel sails, or US crews.

The electric utility, turbine OEM, project developers, and supply chain executives called on both Democrats and Republicans to reject the language in any future Senate version of the bill that may emerge from deliberations set to begin next month.

“As written, the House maritime crewing provision is an existential threat to the future of offshore wind in the US and the immediate result would be the delay and potential cancelation of the 19 offshore wind projects with power offtake contracts or awards,” said the letter, which was sent to Senate majority leader Charles Schumer of New York and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and the heads of the commerce, science, and transportation committee.

The bill passed the Democrat-majority House of Representatives last March as part of the Coast Guard Authorization Act (CGAA) of 2022, with 378 in favour to 46 against. Democrats overwhelmingly supported the measure, with 215 voting for it and only three opposed, while 163 Republicans voted for the bill, with 46 opposed. The CGAA is typically a routine, biennial legislation funding the Coast Guard.
The proposed regulations would tighten crewing and vessel ownership rules already in place under the Jones Act, which prohibits foreign-flagged vessels from calling in at two consecutive American ports or ‘points’ on the outer continental shelf (OCS), a definition that includes both offshore oil & gas wells and wind turbines.
The US lacks own-flagged wind turbine installation vessels (WTIV), leaving developers facing the prospect of rolling out strategies to work within the Jones Act, adding to costs. They would need to deploy barges and ocean-going tugs flying the stars-and-stripes to deliver turbine components to foreign-flagged WTIV waiting at and installation site, which occurred with the nation’s two operating offshore wind pilots.

The proposed regulations would complicate this plan by adding ownership and crewing requirements to WTIV, regardless of whether they come into port, according to the executives.

“The crewing provision would serve to block the use of… international specialized offshore vessels when there are currently no US-flagged specialized construction vessels to do the work needed,” the letter said.

The US is the midst of a significant build out of offshore-wind-ready vessels, including the nation’s first wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), the Charybdis, owned by Dominion Energy, the Virginia utility developing the nation's largest project in federal waters, as well as rock dumpers, service operations vessels (SVO), and multiple crew transfer vessels (CTV).
With 20GW of capacity up for approval as early as next year, however, these vessels will not be nearly enough to meet the scale of demand.
Several studies indicate that the US will need at least five WTIV to meet the Biden administration’s 30GW of offshore wind by 2030 target, but with none other than the Charybdis announced, and with minimum three-year construction time frames, it will likely fall far short.

“A majority of the vessels used by the offshore wind industry will be made in America and crewed by US mariners,” the corporate leaders noted in the letter.

US-flagged vessels such as CTVs and SVOs, “will have the greatest amount of vessel hours because they will perform all transportation activities between US ports and offshore wind turbines during the approximately 35-year lifetime of the project”.

Congress should replace the provision in the Coast Guard bill with policy incentives to build more US-flagged vessels, the executives stated.

“Ultimately, the offshore wind industry and Congress have the same goal: maximising the number of Americans employed in offshore wind, including mariners. We need reasonable policies and predictable permitting timelines, not impossible mandates that will drive a stake through the heart of the industry before we can get it off the ground,” they said.

The industry has already committed “at least $4bn” to the US economy through vessel builds, workforce training, and supply chain development, said the signatories, who included David Hardy, CEO of Orsted North America, Laura Beane, president of Vestas North America, and Jeff Grybowski, CEO of US Wind.

(Copyright)
Published 23 June 2022, 22:58Updated 16 October 2023, 15:39
AmericasUSUS CongressJoe BidenJeff Grybowski