“Texas has oil, West Virginia has coal — I don’t want coal — and we have wind,” said Governor Ned Lamont during a press conference at the State Pier in New London Wednesday morning.
The governor was joined by a slew of other stakeholders to announce Connecticut’s new Offshore Wind Strategic Roadmap. The 22-page document outlines state leaders’ plans to turn the state into a hub for the offshore wind industry, starting with the State Pier itself.
“This is our guiding light, our North Star for the offshore wind industry,” said Paul Lavoie, head of the state’s Office on Manufacturing and Economic Development lead for Connecticut’s offshore wind interests.
The roadmap contains four main “strategic pillars.” The first of the pillars is leveraging New London’s new heavy-lift pier and other deepwater ports to create a center for assembly, “operations and maintenance, and other support capabilities.” The press conference itself was held in front of a blade for a to-be-assembled wind turbine, as well as a line of similarly massive nacelles that will eventually be connected to three of those blades. The State Pier recently began operations as an assembly area for these turbines, even while construction of the pier is still inching towards completion. The goal is for the pier to service three separate offshore wind farms. The first is expected to begin producing power at the end of the year and will supply New York. The second, Revolution Wind, will supply power to Connecticut and Rhode Island. It is expected to start generating sometime in 2024.
While the first pillar is based on current plans and operation pillars two through four are part of the state’s hope for the future. These involve expanding offshore wind in the state, creating jobs in the sector, and working with colleges and universities (like Yale or UConn) to provide research and development into the sector.
In addition to the roadmap, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) announced that the state would be joining with neighboring Massachusetts and Rhode Island to develop further requests for proposals. Ideally, this would create a more competitive and less expensive bid process. Exactly which projects might be part of this collaboration were not specified.
“All of our states share strong commitments to offshore wind,” said Commissioner Dykes. “We know how important it’s to meeting our clean energy target, but we also increasingly know how important it’s going to be, and it is, for maintaining the reliability of the grid, especially in the wintertime when these turbines are gonna be fully powering up. And we know how important it is for creating a green economy in our region.”
Finally, the state will be launching a Connecticut Wind Collaborative (CWC), in which people and businesses can invest in the state’s offshore wind industry. If funded at the level expected, the CWC would provide between $3-4 million. Details on initial investors are expected later this week.
“Our direct water access, network of deepwater ports, and long history of advanced manufacturing has made Connecticut a natural home for offshore wind,” said Lavoie. “The Connecticut Wind Collaborative will introduce even more collaboration and innovation into the state’s offshore wind economy. I look forward to sharing additional details on the collaborative and its activities.”
Connecticut’s future in the offshore wind business is off to a rocky start so far. In addition to a State Pier project with a ballooning price tag and a series of delays, Eversource, the state’s largest provider of electricity, divested from offshore wind projects earlier this year. This afternoon, Eversource said the company had decided to use its finite resources to invest more in landed infrastructure but still supported offshore wind as an essential part of a green energy future. Then, this week, another major investor in Connecticut wind energy stepped back from a project in Bridgeport, citing supply chain issues that have sharply increased costs.
“I get it,” said Lamont, seemingly anticipating questions about the viability of the industry. “Wind is a relatively new industry, at least this generation of wind is. We’ve got some challenges there. Some of them related to supply chain, some of them related to interest rates. And you take that into account, but you have to have a core belief.”
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