Federal and private-sector funding totaling $36 million will support new offshore wind workforce development initiatives in Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.

GWO Training

Representatives of offshore wind developers Ørsted and Eversource Energy (NYSE:ES) joined Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee Wednesday to announce the companies will dedicate $1 million for a partnership to establish an OSW training certificate program. Ørsted and Eversource are jointly developing the 704-MW Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island. In 2019, they committed $4.5 million to support offshore wind education and supply chain development in the state.

The new funding announcement, which is part of that $4.5 million, will help build a Global Wind Organization (GWO) safety training program at the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) in cooperation with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, Rhode Island Commerce, the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, and Building Futures. GWO is a nonprofit organization founded by wind developers, including Ørsted, that has been publishing wind training standards since 2012.

CCRI expects to begin enrollment for the training program early next year, and the certification will be valid for two years.

ARPA Funding

The Maryland Department of Labor received $23 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to establish an OSW workforce training system dubbed Maryland Works for Wind (MWW). U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced the award Wednesday along with 31 other grant winners under the APRA Good Jobs Challenge.

Ørsted, which is developing the 966-MW Skipjack Wind project off the coast of Maryland, applauded the Department of Commerce award.

MWW “positions the state to build a pipeline of skilled talent to support Skipjack Wind’s development and other projects in the U.S. and globally,” David Hardy, CEO of Ørsted Offshore North America, said in a statement.

Ørsted and US Wind have agreed to be hiring partners for the MWW program, according to the labor department’s application for the ARPA challenge. US Wind is developing the 300-MW MarWin and 808-MW Momentum Wind projects off the coast of Maryland.

The labor department expects to implement the program over three phases, which will cover program development through the end of this year, design from January to June 2023, and implementation from July 2023 to June 2025.

Program implementation will feature Tier 1 and 2 training options for welding, construction and logistics along with in-house union training for apprentices. The implementation phase will represent the final two years of the program, and the department expects it to coincide with the start of hiring by Ørsted and US Wind.

Virginia and North Carolina will receive an $11-million Good Jobs Challenge grant to the Hampton Roads Workforce Council in Norfolk for maritime training program development. The council, which covers the Hampton Roads region in Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina, expects the program to train 950 maritime professionals for OSW-related jobs.

Other ARPA Awards

The Department of Commerce awarded an additional $70.2 million in ARPA challenge funds for clean energy workforce development. Those awards are:

• $23.7 to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro to establish the STEPs4Growth clean energy workforce training program;
• $23.5 to the Washington Student Achievement Council in Olympia to establish a multi-sector workforce training program covering energy, healthcare, information technology, financial services, manufacturing and construction; and
• $23 million to the Economic Development and Industrial Corporation of Boston to establish the Greater Boston Region Workforce Training System for energy and resilience, healthcare and childcare.