Toiling hundreds of feet above the open ocean, sometimes amid stormy weather and battering waves, technicians in the offshore wind industry need not only be skilled at installing and maintaining turbines. They must be prepared for the worst.
The depth of training required and the potential of the emerging offshore wind sector to pump billions of dollars into the regional economy now has colleges, government agencies, nonprofits and private stakeholders ramping up efforts to prepare the pipeline of skilled workers needed to build and maintain massive wind turbines off the southern New England coast.
But there are also challenges in readying a workforce for an industry that doesn’t yet exist in the U.S. and still may be many more years in the making. Murky timelines for wind projects have complicated decisions on how to best offer specialized job training and safety certifications for the masses.
“Clearly, what you don’t want to do is be training someone to be an offshore technician now in 2021, if there’s not going to be a position for him or her until 2023,” said Neil Harvey, vice president of operations for Boston Energy Wind Power Services Inc., an United Kingdom-based company with U.S. headquarters in Providence that recruits and trains turbine technicians. “That person would become ‘de-skilled’ if they weren’t kept busy in the industry, or would lose interest.”
Many are forging ahead despite the uncertainties.
The most recent example of regional training efforts is in New Bedford, where Bristol Community College is preparing to open the National Offshore Wind Institute with a capacity to train up to 100 workers at a time when it opens next year.
The 30,000-square-foot building – a former seafood packaging plant along the waterfront – will include classrooms, laboratories, climbing towers and a 9-foot-deep pool for hands-on lessons and safety exercises, according to Jennifer Menard, Bristol Community College interim vice president of economic and business development who is overseeing the launch of the institute.
Trainees will be taught industry-certified safety practices, activities such as how to disembark from a boat onto a turbine tower and how to climb to dizzying heights while using safety harnesses and a lifeline rope. Lessons will include worst-case scenarios, such as teaching trainees how to escape a submerged helicopter in case of a crash, Menard said.
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LOOMING LARGE: A boat carrying a group of Rhode Island high schoolers circles the base of one of the massive turbines of the Block Island Wind Farm. Students have been participating in Wind Win RI, a career pathway program for the offshore wind industry. / COURTESY DOUG LEARNED/LUCKY DAWG PHOTOGRAPHY[/caption]
In the Ocean State, plans are underway at the Community College of Rhode Island to offer a program that will provide safety certifications that will be required of offshore wind workers of the future. And there’s even an educational program aimed at exposing Rhode Island high schoolers to the career possibilities in the offshore wind sector. In four years, more than 250 students have participated in internships, educational projects and field trips to the Block Island Wind Farm as part of a program established by a local chamber of commerce.
But questions remain about when exactly a full-fledged offshore wind industry can take flight. Regulatory hurdles and legal challenges that have sunk projects in the past, such as the $2.6 billion Cape Wind project proposed in Nantucket Sound that was scrapped in 2017 after more than 15 years of planning. Also, projects still on the drawing boards have faced opposition from fishermen and environmentalists seeking protections for fish, birds and marine mammals, along with a legal challenge from a solar farm operator.
Nevertheless, public officials, educators and business stakeholders say they want to ensure the region is prepared to seize the windfall of well-paying jobs when the time comes.
Menard said she believes there’s been a sea change on the federal level. The Biden administration has set a target of establishing 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, which the federal government estimates will trigger more than $12 billion per year in capital investments and create 44,000 new jobs directly in the offshore wind sector. That means jobs such as building wind turbines and installing them at sea, along with operations and maintenance. The industry will also generate 33,000 new indirect jobs, such as the staff hired at hotels or restaurants located near project sites, along with transportation services for wind farm project workers.
“It’s now more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ for us,’” said Menard. “When President [Joe] Biden came in, that’s when the switch came on.”
Bristol Community College President Laura Douglas agreed.
“Offshore wind in the U.S. has been kicked down the road for a while,” Douglas said. “Under the Biden administration, offshore wind is here and now. It will be a reality in just a few years.”
‘FORECAST OF TALENT’
Of those 44,000 estimated offshore wind jobs, 3,600 are expected by the Biden administration to come from a 62-turbine project near Martha’s Vineyard called Vineyard Wind, the U.S. wind farm closest to clearing all regulatory hurdles. Most of those jobs will come from construction and installation. An analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Energy Management shows that just 80 Vineyard Wind jobs will last 25 years, before the project is eventually decommissioned.
A joint venture between a U.S. subsidiary of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola SA and the Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners P/S, Vineyard Wind is due to start onshore construction later this year. It is expected to produce 800 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 400,000 homes. The project’s timeline calls for cable installation to start in 2022 with turbine installation in 2023.
The 62-turbine Vineyard Wind originally called for as many as 108 turbines and then planned for 84 towers, but project planners opted in late 2020 for an upgraded turbine model that is able to produce more power per tower with a height of 800 feet above the water.
However, the $2.8 billion project is now dealing with a lawsuit filed by a Connecticut solar farm operator claiming that federal officials overlooked environmental risks posed by the wind farm when they allegedly rushed the approval of the upgraded turbines.
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POWERING UP: Regional officials are prepping the pipeline of workers who are expected to be needed to install and maintain wind turbines like those off Block Island in the coming years. / COURTESY ORSTED
U.S. OFFSHORE WIND[/caption]
And while that lawsuit aims to halt the project, Vineyard Wind recently signed an agreement with Southeastern Massachusetts Building Trades Council for 500 union workers to be part of onshore construction and offshore installation, using the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal as a staging area.
“They can’t wait to recruit those workers then get them trained,” Menard said. “Certainly, the expectation is we’ll be supporting construction, operation and maintenance workers.”
Beyond Vineyard Wind, other large projects are moving through the federal and state regulatory process. There’s the 12-turbine, 132-megawatt South Fork Wind and the 88-turbine, 700-megawatt Revolution Wind projects in Rhode Island.
Also in the works is Sunrise Wind, a proposed farm that could eclipse the size of the Revolution Wind and would feed power to New York. All three projects are slated to be constructed in Rhode Island Sound, between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard.
Ahead of those projects, Rhode Island has offered tax credits to companies to establish training operations, including Boston Energy and turbine maintenance company GEV Wind Power US LLC. But the facilities have yet to open.
GEV Vice President Daniel Boon said earlier this year that a plan for a training center in North Kingstown was put on hold, and that the company was not confident it could hire 123 wind turbine technicians by 2023, a condition for the company to receive $1.9 million state job incentive tax credits. Boon did not respond to recent requests for comment.
The state is still working to establish Global Wind Organization-affiliated training facilities, in partnership with GEV and Boston Energy, said Nina Pande, executive director of the job-training nonprofit Skills for Rhode Island’s Future. But she acknowledged that timing the availability of technical training with offshore wind farm construction has been a challenge, and it was made more difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Further adding to the challenge: The offshore wind sector is unchartered territory in the U.S.
“We have been mapping out what the forecast of talent needs looks like, based on all of the new wind farms that have either been proposed or approved,” Pande said. “Part of the problem of building a workforce for wind energy is that there’s not a lot of context for what this workforce would look like. People don’t know much about what this work entails because it’s a new job type.”
The state does not yet have a reliable estimate for how many jobs will be created here, Pande said. That’s largely due to an unknown variable: the outcome of power-purchasing power – how much utilities such as National Grid will pay for the output from each wind farm.
The goal is that if Rhode Island becomes a major player in offshore wind, it could support more than 500 new jobs, including not just wind farm technicians and construction workers, but also direct support services and product suppliers, Pande said.
“It all depends on where the [installations] are going, how much power is coming to Rhode Island and how that is negotiated,” she said. “We haven’t validated those numbers because these [power purchasing] contracts are still being negotiated.”
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MEET AND GREET: A group of about 40 offshore wind professionals gathered last month at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Providence, including, from left, S. Kersey Sturdivant and Annie Murphy, both of Newport-based Inspire Environmental LLC, and Anita Johannessen, of Boston Energy Wind Power Services Inc., which has its U.S. headquarters in Providence. / PBN PHOTO/MARC LAROCQUE[/caption]
A MATTER OF TIMING
Business leaders are pushing forward.
Last month, about 40 offshore industry professionals attended breakfast meeting at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Providence, the first time they gathered in person since the pandemic started last year. The CIC houses more than 10 companies affiliated with the wind sector that employ dozens of people, including the U.S. subsidiary of the Danish company Orsted A/S, which is involved with Revolution, South Fork and Sunrise wind projects. (Orsted declined to comment for this story.)
“This shows Rhode Island can compete in the market for talent, and the market for resources to help this field grow,” CIC General Manager Rebecca Webber said of the collection of companies represented at the CIC.
Also at the breakfast was R.I. Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor, who touted Rhode Island as a pioneer of the offshore wind sector.
“We have a lot going on those fronts, and there is more being planned,” Pryor said. “It’s definitely the case that the availability of talent – as well as other key factors, like the ability to find local business-to-business sales connections – will help make sure we continue to grow this industry. It’s an essential asset.”
Bruce Katz, author of a state report last year that emphasized the importance of developing Rhode Island’s “blue economy,” said he’s confident the state can “connect the dots” between job seekers, education, businesses seeking a skilled labor force and public funding for economic development.
“This is an area where Rhode Island can punch above its weight, assuming the federal government expands investment, which I think is a fair assumption,” said Katz, a consultant and co-founder of New Localism Associates LLC.
At the college level, CCRI is launching its Global Wind Organization-approved training initiative by the end of this year, according to Tekla Moquin, executive director of workforce partnerships for the college. Moquin said the college is working closely with R.I. Commerce Corp. to forge partnerships in the private sector.
“We know there is so much more we need to learn and we are ready and listening and partnering with the right folks,” Moquin said. “The college is eager to prepare our students for current and anticipated roles in that industry.”
The University of Rhode Island offers several courses of study and programs related to offshore wind, including its URI Energy Fellows program. And recently researchers from URI were awarded a $1.2 million federal grant to study floating offshore wind turbines.
At the high school level, there’s an initiative called Wind Win RI, created in 2017 by the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce as a way to provide outreach and educational programs to local youth about careers in offshore wind. The Wind Win RI initiative received annual grant funding and support from the state’s Department of Labor, with 250 students participating so far.
Wind Win RI also has an adult training track that provided dozens of potential offshore wind workers with certification on fall arrest systems of ropes and harnesses, and the initiative trained nine employees of Atlantic Wind Transfers, providing certifications that they could use in the future to ferry offshore wind workers to and from the turbines.
James Halley, North Kingstown Chamber chairman, compared the arrival of offshore wind in the U.S. to the advancement in computer technology four decades ago, requiring a newly trained labor force, with good-paying jobs created through innovation.
“It’s going to be a very bright future for a young person getting into this field, like it was for computers 40 years ago,” said Halley. “We have these jobs that’ll be open, but we don’t have enough skilled people to fill them right now.”
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ON THE DRAWING BOARD: The Revolution Wind, South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind offshore wind farms in waters off the coast of southern New England are all currently in various stages of the permitting process. / SOURCE: R.I. DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT / PBN GRAPHIC/ANNE EWING[/caption]
Laura Hastings, director of programs and events for The Business Network for Offshore Wind, a coalition of businesses devoted to furthering offshore wind and its supply chain, called it a “very American thing” to become involved in a new industry as it’s trying to get off the ground. Hastings, former program director of Real Jobs Rhode Island at the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, said it’s important that Rhode Island manufacturers and other businesses become aware of the opportunities to become involved in the supply chain for offshore wind farms.
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” Hastings said. “The Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts regional economy can grow exponentially because of this. At this moment, it’s all about marketing, education, explanation and getting businesses to understand how they can fit in and why they would want to fit in. In order to grow an industry that doesn’t exist, you need to attack it from all angles.”
Hastings called Rhode Island’s approach to offshore wind tech training as “cautious in a way that’s healthy,” given its limited resources for funding, along with the permitting delays and other uncertainties surrounding offshore wind projects.
“Some of this is sort of lying in wait,” Hastings said. “It’s like waiting for the flood gates to open. Rhode Island is doing the best it can with what it has, recognizing you don’t want to get the cart in front of the horse, and then have a lawsuit happen and the industry is delayed a bit.”
Harvey, the Boston Energy executive, said a moving timeline presents challenges for Rhode Island. But he said Boston Energy is ready to mobilize its training specialists from the United Kingdome when the time is right to help Rhode Island develop the labor force needed to become a player in offshore wind energy.
“There’s a lot of timing involved,” said Harvey. “Any wind project is dynamic. It’s a challenging time, but it’s also an exciting time.”
Marc Larocque is a PBN staff writer. Contact him at Larocque@PBN.com.
