Avangrid Renewables LLC is ramping up its efforts to add offshore wind jobs and build relationships with local communities, part of its strategy to garner support for its Massachusetts and North Carolina projects.
Vineyard Wind LLC, Avangrid's joint offshore wind development venture with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners K/S, recently launched a $2 million initiative for offshore wind job training in southeastern Massachusetts near its Vineyard Offshore Wind Project site. Avangrid Renewables President and CEO Laura Beane said the funding will help build strong relations with the community.
"It aligns with our overall commitment to working with the stakeholders," she said in an interview. "We want a project that the local community supports and is excited about, and we're really proud of the work we've done there."
It is also part of Avangrid Inc.'s ambition to be an early leader in the U.S. domestic offshore wind industry. During Avangrid's Feb. 20 earnings call, Beane said the company is in a position to compete with other renewable energy developers, given Avangrid's experience building transmission lines and its parent company Iberdrola SA's experience with offshore projects.
"It really is a race" to become the center of the offshore wind supply chain, Beane added.
Suppliers and workers wanted
If Massachusetts picks Vineyard Wind to fulfill its offshore wind goals, construction could start in 2019 and the up-to-800-MW project could be online as early as 2021. Avangrid Renewables is also pursuing an accelerated timeline with its planned wind farm off Kitty Hawk, N.C. Federal regulators approved the company's lease in October 2017. Beane said the company is well underway with the permitting process and construction for the project could start as early as 2025.
"Now we will turn our focus to exactly what our team is doing in Massachusetts, which is working with the local stakeholders and developing similar relationships [to] ensure similar levels of support in that community when it gets built out," she said. Depending on the project design, the Kitty Hawk wind farm could reach 2,500 MW in capacity.
In order to grow support for the emerging offshore wind industry, states and companies have been focusing on building up a robust supply chain and a labor pool to run it, Beane said. Developers and energy companies are expected to spend more than $27 billion building 5.9 GW of offshore wind projects scheduled to come online by 2027, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. States pursuing offshore wind procurement targets promise big boosts to economic development; for example, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has said an offshore wind industry would bring 5,000 new jobs to the state and create more than $6 billion of in-state expenditures.
The Vineyard Offshore Wind Project could employ between 919 and 2,120 people over its lifespan, depending on the project's size, according to two new reports from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Public Policy Center. Vineyard Wind's $2 million job training fund, plus a $10 million "industry accelerator" fund and potential partnerships with local communities, could add another 179 jobs.
"Further, the broad occupational needs of the project also provide opportunities for project staff to work their way up the occupational ladder within the emerging [offshore wind] industry, whether through continuing education or on-the-job training and acquired experience during the project period," researchers wrote.