OC offshore wind project seeking government backing

Developing the United States' first large-scale offshore wind farm has been anything but a breeze. There are the daunting regulatory hurdles at both state and federal levels. Financing has to be scraped together. And myriad engineering details, which include ensuring the towering turbines have sound footing and connecting the project to the power grid, must be sorted out.

Two years after it outbid the competition to develop a huge wind project in the waters off Ocean City, U.S. Wind has few outward signs of progress to show for its efforts so far. Nonetheless, the project is moving forward and nearing an important milestone.

Maryland's Public Service Commission is set to vote in the late winter or early spring next year whether to approve U.S. Wind's application for offshore renewable energy credits. If the commission rules in the company's favor, it would go a long way toward dispersing the clouds of uncertainty that have dogged the development from its inception, industry analysts say.

One of the company's top lieutenants is confident in its chances.

"At the end of the day, it’s a discussion about the net impact to ratepayers. This is one source that helps mitigate fuel price spikes," said Paul Rich, U.S. Wind's project development director, adding that wind power isn't affected by political unrest in other parts of the world.

The company, an arm of the Italian firm Renexia, is developing the 750 megawatt project in phases. The first 250 megawatts would be financed by the state's renewable energy credits. Those credits, in turn, would be paid for by electricity customers during the 25-year life of the project.

Government backing is essential to get the project off the ground, Rich said.

“You don’t build the mall until you get the cornerstone tenants," he said.

U.S. Wind paid $8.7 million in 2014 to lease 125 square miles of federally owned Outer Continental Shelf for the project. The company plans to plant 187 turbines about a dozen miles off the coast of Ocean City, generating enough electricity to power more than 500,000 homes.

Operating and maintaining those turbines is expected to create 250 jobs, the company estimates.

In the meantime, U.S. Wind is turning the final corner on its design work.

A research vessel, helmed by the contractor Alpine Ocean Seismic Survey Inc., launched from Ocean City last Aug. 25 to scan the proposed 35-mile route of the cable connecting the project to dry land. The work is expected to take about three weeks, Rich said (but that was before the remnants of Hurricane Hermine blew into the Atlantic).

The route takes the cable on an arc toward the northwest, crossing just south of the Indian River Inlet. From there, it moves up Indian River Bay to the Indian River Power Plant near Millsboro.

That information, coupled with a similar investigation that took place last year at the proposed turbine area, is needed for the project's construction permit with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Rich said.

Meanwhile, the company has all approvals but one — from the Maryland Department of the Environment — to raise a meteorological tower at the lease site. The tower's instruments will gather real-time wind data, which will be used to shape the final design of the turbines.

The Ocean City project won't be the first offshore wind producer in the United States. That title goes to Deepwater Wind's Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island. But at 30 megawatts, it is not being built to the utility-size scale envisioned in Delmarva waters.

Being first could give Delmarva a huge leg up on other regions vying for industry prominence, Rich said.

“Maryland jumped to the front of being able to truly capture as the first mover this offshore wind industry," he said. "We then have this opportunity in this state to create the bedrock for this wind industry that will serve other parts of the East Coast when it’s done.”

Business leaders, government officials and economic developers have banded together locally to form Lower Shore Wind Partners, a group they say will help position the region as a wind-energy hub.

“The business community really, really wants this to happen," said Katarina Ennerfelt, president of Arcon Welding and the Toroid Corp. in Salisbury.

She worries, though, that the Gov. Larry Hogan-era Public Service Commission will reject U.S. Wind's application. Her reasoning: Hogan, a Republican, has been loath to implement new forms of revenue, and the offshore wind project would impose a projected $1 increase in monthly electric bills.

Ennerfelt, now president-elect of the trade group Business Network for Offshore Wind, has been unsuccessful so far in gleaning the administration's position on wind energy.

“They have refused to give us any feedback, and believe me, I am very persistent," she said.

Matt Drew, a mechanical engineer with AWB Engineers in Salisbury, said he recently conducted a tour of the city's available manufacturing sites for the Business Network's board of directors. Many liked what they saw, he recalled.

But it will all be for naught if the state turns its back on offshore wind, he said.

delmarvanow.com