At the port of Salem. Mass., about 20 miles north of Boston, where a 750-MW coal-and-oil-fired power plant operated for more than six decades, construction of a $300-million offshore wind energy staging terminal is set to begin to support developing projects and re-energize wind sector growth after recent setbacks.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center last year acquired 42 acres for the terminal in a $30-million purchase of part of the former 65-acre power plant site from port developer Crowley Maritime Corp., which bought it in 2022 several years after energy generation ended. AECOM is the project design firm, with a joint venture of D.W. White Construction and J.F. White Contracting Co. named general contractor. Work is set to finish by the end of 2026.
Funding for the Salem terminal includes a $34-million grant from the U.S. Maritime Administration and about $80 million in state infrastructure funding, as well as private investment. “Crowley will lead private sector financing and leverage our previously announced partnership with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners for other project funding,” said the marine contractor, which also is the terminal construction manager and will operate it. Crowley did not disclose its stake in the terminal, which would support both fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind projects.
Massachusetts, which has a net-zero carbon emissions goal by 2050, also received $389 million in federal funding to expand transmission for offshore wind, along with other New England states. Gov. Maura Healey (D) said the state “is well-positioned to support the growing offshore wind industry.”
Under a project labor agreement signed in July, 20% of the workforce will be union apprentices, with goals also set for hiring minority and women workers. In February, Salem finalized a $9-million “community benefits” agreement with Crowley that includes nearly $4 million in education investment.
More Port Upgrades
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 set for expansion, the state's clean energy agency said Aug. 15. Work will include redevelopment of an existing legacy bulkhead and increased heavy-lift quayside to 1,200 linear ft. The agency committed $45 million to the project, set to finish in December 2026. It also plans to apply for federal grants and pursue funding from private sources.
The New Bedford terminal is closer to more southern New England project sites planned, but the port's narrow opening can't accommodate larger vessels built in more recent years.
The port expansions come despite project and developer financial problems in recent years due to inflation and supply chain pressures that resulted in restructured power sale terms and some project cancellations.
But with the Biden administration pushing harder to meet a 30-GW by 2030 goal for U.S offshore wind development, the U.S. Interior Dept. approved in April construction of the 2.6-GW New England Wind, a two-part project of up to 129 turbines to be built about 30 miles from the state’s southern coast. Financially restructured from two cancelled projects, its first 791-MW phase could start construction next year.
The department and the stale of Maine also signed Aug. 19 the first U.S. floating offshore wind research lease in a 15,000-acre deep water area in the Gulf of Maine about 28 nautical miles offshore, with up to 12 floating wind turbines totaling 144 MW to be deployed. Maine designated Pine Tree Offshore Wind as the operator of the research lease. The research will “inform responsible commercial floating offshore wind development in the future,” Interior said, focused on innovative technology and protecting marine industries and resources.
Interior also is assessing environmental impacts of proposed lease sales at eight Gulf of Maine sites off Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. No date has yet been announced for these. Bidders could gain credits in committing to floating wind workforce and supply chain investments. The proposed sales come “at a critical time in New England’s energy transition,” the Sierra Club said earlier this year. The region’s last two coal-fired plants, both located in New Hampshire, are set to retire operation in 2025 and 2028.
Terminal Heavy Lifting
The Salem terminal building team has obtained city and state permits and is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Maritime Administration to complete environmental assessments, said Graham Tyson, Crowley vice president of port operations.
The facility will include two heavy-lifting berths for offshore wind component delivery and moorage of specialized turbine installment vessels, according to Crowley. Two heavy-lift sites will be able to berth ships up to 700 ft long, with enough load capacity to handle larger turbine components and supporting cranes, Tyson said. “Maintaining the high load-bearing standards of 4,000 and 3,000 [lb per sq ft] in different areas is also critical to support storage and lifting operations of sensitive components,” he noted.
Most U.S. ports “were never designed to handle the weight of components that we’re marshaling here at the site,” Joe Choi, senior director for ports and waterfront structural engineer at Crowley unit Crowley Wind Services, told ENR. “The primary wharf will be supported on steel pipe piles and a reinforced deck,” he said.
The team also will build a pad supported on concrete piles and on a concrete slab, with dense grade aggregate to support component storage, Choi said. To handle the large volume of leftover power plant aggregate material, the contractor team developed a way to crush and cut material to meet specifications for dense grade aggregate. “We were able to keep all that material on site without exporting and minimal importing additional aggregate materials,” Tyson said.
Massachusetts is pushing forward despite work interruption for the Vineyard Wind 1 project—the first utility-scale offshore wind facility in the U.S. to start construction—when a 351-ft-long blade collapsed in mid-July from a giant 13.6-MW turbine, sending debris into the ocean and onto beaches on Nantucket Island, 20 miles south of Cape Cod.
Megaproject Seeks Recovery
The event suspended further construction of the project’s planned 62 turbines and power production from the 10 now operating while developer and federal investigations continue. Federal officials on Aug. 13 permitted Vineyard Wind to continue turbine installation “not associated with the blade event,” such as 850-ft-high towers, foundations and nacelles that contain turbine generating components.
Turbine manufacturer and builder GE Vernova, whose CEO attributed the break to a production quality-control error, said it is inspecting all Vineyard Wind blades in place and awaiting installation—reviewing thousands of ultrasound images captured during blade manufacturing to detect "anomalies."
GE Vernova Chief Sustainability Officer Roger Martella said the company is physically inspecting blades and also using advanced remote-controlled crawler robots equipped with video cameras and fiber optic sensors that can detect stress in rotating blades. It also developed a new algorithm that will offer “several hours to even days of notice of anything like this ever recurring,” he said.
Removal of turbine blade debris is underway by Resolve Marine, the contractor that also supported recovery after the March 26 collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. “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,” removal of the blade root still installed in the hub, recovery of fallen debris from the turbine platform and “addressing” blade remnants on the ocean floor. The firms have disclosed no timeline for completion of that work. Their ongoing probes and those by Interior also have unclear end dates.
“Unfortunately, we fully expect this will happen again,” said Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, which opposes accelerated offshore wind energy development. “We do not yet know the cause of [the] incident. But we do know that no human structure can forever withstand the corrosive power of the ocean.”
Gov. Healey emphasized that the state is “going to figure out and get to the bottom of what happened [at the Vineyard Wind site]. But let's be clear about this—we are invested highly in this industry.”
It is not clear if the blade break will affect the project's existing lease at the New Bedford terminal, which expires Dec. 31 with an option to extend 90 days. Developers of the SouthCoast Wind project signed a facility lease with the state in April, with a $15-million investment made and plans to take control in 2029, according to one local report.
Meanwhile, bidders are awaiting word in early September on new project proposals submitted jointly to Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Massachusetts seeks 3.6 GW as it pushes to meet a mandated 5.6 GW contracted by 2027, with the total three-state procurement targeting 6.8 GW. Those proposed already include the 1.2-GW Vineyard Wind 2 project and SouthCoast Wind's 1.2-GW 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 to Connecticut and Rhode Island only.
