By Michael Kuser

NEW YORK — New York state wasn’t the first out of the gate on offshore wind, but it will be the biggest player if it meets Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2,400-MW target. State policymakers are embracing offshore wind for its utility-scale generation, its ability to be developed close to the major load centers of New York City and Long Island — and its potential jobs.

“Right now, there are over 300,000 jobs in the offshore wind industry in Europe,” Sierra Club Senior New York Representative Lisa Dix said last week when she moderated a panel at the Infocast New York Energy REVolution Summit at Times Square.

The federal government has identified more than 100 GW of offshore wind potential off the Atlantic coast, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has moved forward with the offshore wind lease process in New York and seven other states. The first offshore wind lease for New York, a nearly 80,000-acre site off the Rockaways in Queens, went to Norway-based Statoil last December.

“Offshore wind provides power when it’s needed the most, at peak times,” Dix said. “And it’s at a scale that the state needs not only to fulfill its renewable energy policy goals, but also to help combat climate change, where New York City and Long Island are really on the front lines.”

State and Stakeholder Support

Chris Wissemann represents the U.S. activities of Germany-based offshore wind developer Innogy, which he characterized as being four times the size of Consolidated Edison and generating enough electricity to serve the entire load of New York state.

“Long-term, stable policy is what makes this become cost-effective,” Wissemann said. “Along those lines is the corollary, which is the four P’s: politics-proof purchase program. Look at Cape Wind, several years ago: The minute their benefactor was out of office, they lost their [power purchase agreement]. New Jersey’s OSW economic development program was never implemented because of politics.”

Cuomo in January called for 2,400 MW of offshore wind projects by 2030, starting with the 90-MW South Fork Project off Montauk, Long Island.

The growing breadth and depth of support for offshore wind is spectacular, but not surprising, said New York Offshore Wind Alliance director Liz Gordon. All the different interest groups don’t necessarily have the same reasons to support OSW, she said.

“Environmental groups clearly see clean, reliable offshore wind power as a climate change solution, or at least a mitigation,” Gordon said. “Labor in New York state is all-in; they’re vocally supporting offshore wind because they see massive job potential — good jobs, quality jobs. That will depend on there being a reliable pipeline of projects and ideally a port or two here in New York.”

Leasing Moves Forward

Greg Matzat, senior adviser on large-scale renewables at the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said: “New York has the largest goal for offshore wind in the country of 2,400 MW. Massachusetts is behind us at 1,600. But we’re the only state that doesn’t have enough areas currently leased to support our goal. Massachusetts has more than 1,600 MW [in leased sites] available, so it’s really important for us to identify sites that make sense for New York and hopefully work for BOEM too … so we can move forward with more leases.”

The Statoil site has room for about 800 MW, only one-third of New York’s target.

James F. Bennett, chief of renewable energy programs at BOEM, described the 13 commercial OSW leases contracted so far, extending from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras.

“There’s at least one off of every state, from Massachusetts to North Carolina, and obviously where the greatest demand would be,” Bennett said. “New York is one of these areas, obviously, where that demand is indeed great. In particular for New York, we have the one area that was leased in December of last year to Statoil for $42 million, which was an incredible milestone for the program. And we also had a sale in North Carolina in March of this year that went for $9 million to Avangrid. Both of those are indicators that the industry, if it hasn’t arrived, it’s arriving. We’re very optimistic about activities in the future.”

According to Bennett, New York has great OSW potential because it has all the factors that make a wind project succeed: wind resources are prime; shallow water off the continental shelf supports seafloor foundations; strong demand that constitutes a good market; and state support.

“I don’t know if there is a stronger demand than immediately from New York,” Bennett said. “All of these leases have occurred with state involvement and state input, and in particular New Jersey and Massachusetts are great examples of states that have put the time and effort into putting the environmental and stakeholder interests together, and that’s the lead that New York is following.”

NYSERDA is drafting a master plan that will include a plan for transmission to get wind-generated power to shore. “Some of this you’ll see in our Public Service Commission filings,” said Matzat, “but the master plan will include recommendations on how to move pre-permit forward for OSW and a timeline on how we see this going.”

BOEM manages the lease process and step one is planning and analysis to identify a wind-energy area, “which is where we are now in the process for New York,” Bennett said. “It’s obvious that the biggest one [lease area] is the one to the north, from New York to Nantucket, and right now that probably will include a couple leases off Martha’s Vineyard, which went unleased just two years ago, and we expect very high demand for those areas and are looking to 2018 for an auction for that. Beyond that, and we’re always hesitant to get nailed down to a date, but after that we think we’re in a position to go forward with another sale in New York.”

Docks and Dolphins

NYSERDA applies a similar evaluation process to ocean areas and to the shoreline for the ports needed to fabricate the huge turbine blades and host the purpose-built vessels used in building OSW installations. The authority is looking at 75 sites. The turbines off Block Island, which are 6 MW each, stand 600 feet above the water. The turbines NYSERDA is looking at will average 10 MW and approach 700 feet tall, plus their 200-foot foundations.

“We’re looking at the whole supply chain, so we’re not just looking at New York Harbor and the Port of New York and New Jersey, but we’re looking around Long Island and we’re looking up the Hudson too,” Matzat said.

Certain activities should be done as close to the wind farm as possible, such as staging for assembly, but other parts of the supply chain, such as manufacturing cables or blades, can be done farther away, he said. Most parts cannot be put on a truck and must be put on a ship, so a large part of the supply chain has to be on the water.

“But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t build up on the Hudson, where there are areas of labor that might fit a particular part of the supply chain, and bring that down on a barge to an assembly area,” Matzat said.

NYSERDA is now conducting public comment sessions, with four for the fishing industry alone this month.

“Another big group that isn’t 100% on board with us is the fishing industry, so we’ve really made a point of reaching out to the fishermen, and we’ve had a dedicated fishing liaison who just goes around to docks, not just in New York but in other states too, to talk to fishermen and understand their concerns,” Matzat said.

The master plan also includes intensive surveys of the shoreline and coast.

The authority has a survey vessel about 15 miles south of New York City doing sediment profiles and sediment samples of the sea bottom over a couple million acres so planners can understand the habitat on the seafloor and what the seafloor is made of, which has environmental as well as construction-planning value.

“I don’t believe any state has ever done that in advance of identifying areas for offshore wind,” Matzat said. “Usually that’s done later by developers.”

NYSERDA also is conducting a digital aerial wildlife survey, using a plane with high-resolution cameras to photograph more than 12,000 square miles of ocean four times a year over three years. It has already completed the first year.