ESPEL, NETHERLANDS, APRIL 20: Wind turbines in an offshore wind park in Flevoland, The Netherlands on April 20, 2022 in Espel, Netherlands. (Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images)Getty

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With large spinning blades wider than two football fields and massive turbines twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, offshore wind farms are slated to become a significant supplier of energy in the United States in the coming years.

New York is allocating half a billion dollars toward the renewable power source, and Staten Island is poised to become a pivotal supplier of equipment that will ultimately reduce reliance on fossil fuels amid the country’s push to combat human-induced climate change.

Here’s what to know about offshore wind and what it means for Staten Islanders:

Large blades, shaped like airfoils designed to move through the air, experience lift from wind similar to the way airplane wings do, explained Dr. Eric Hines, director of the offshore wind graduate program at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

“They’ve been developed and optimized over time so that they can generate incredibly efficient power from the wind,” said Hines.

As the blades move, an area at the top of the turbine’s tower called a nacelle coverts mechanical energy to electrical energy before transferring that energy to a cable that extends down through the bottom of the turbine’s foundation.

Those cables travel then through the seabed to an underwater substation that connects a separate cable to a substation on land that connects to a “point of interconnection,” said Hines.

From there, the power can be disseminated throughout the rest of the power grid. If a state produces enough power, it can even export that energy in similar way fossil fuels can be transferred across the country, creating more sustainable energy sources that can also buttress local economies.

WHAT MAKES OFFSHORE WIND DIFFERENT?

Many Staten Islanders are likely familiar with onshore wind turbines. A 260-foot turbine is visible just over the water in Bayonne, N.J.

But, offshore wind energy offers significantly greater benefits that experts said makes them clearly preferable to turbines that are stationed on land.

One reason: the size of the turbines.

New 15 megawatt turbines can have a rotor diameter of 240 meters, sweeping an area of air that is over 45,000 square meters. Simply, larger turbines equal more energy generation, and those turbines are only expected to get larger in the coming years.

“As soon as you go offshore, you can get turbines that are about three times bigger than the ones they build on land,” said Hines. “The amount of air that you’re catching in this wind turbine is massive.”

Additionally, wind over the ocean is more reliable than wind that makes it to land — creating a consistent energy source.

“The winds offshore are very reliable and they’re very strong,” said Hines. “And so, what it does is it significantly increases what we call the capacity factor — the amount of time that the wind is blowing and the amount of time that the wind is blowing at the speed that it needs to power the wind turbine.”

That capacity factor from land-based winds normally sits at about 35% but can jump to 55% from offshore sources.

Artist’s rendering of the Arthur Kill Terminal. Courtesy, Atlantic Offshore Terminal

HOW ARE OFFSHORE WIND FARMS MADE?

With massive equipment comes a need for massive manufacturing ports.

Staten Island is quickly becoming positioned to be a major player in the offshore wind industry, as the borough’s Arthur Kill Terminal inches closer to operation and other sites are being eyed as critical manufacturing locations for the pieces needed to create and maintain offshore wind farms.

Uniquely, the Arthur Kill Terminal sits outside the restrictiveness of bridges — a key element of the port that will enable it to produce larger pieces of equipment that are otherwise unable to pass under elevated roadways.

“That terminal is very strategically placed,” said Hines.

To create the turbines, specialized wind turbine installation vessels (known as WTIVs) go from gathering nacelles, blades and turbines from onshore ports to bringing those pieces out to the site an offshore wind turbine will be erected.

The vessels, which function as massive barges, create a steady platform by using large legs to actually lift the ship above the water — allowing it to avoid the rock-and-sway of the ocean.

From there, massive cranes on the ship install the turbines in two stages, explained Hines, beginning with the foundation and underwater components and concluding with the sections that extend above the ocean.

Offshore wind availability as of July 2022. (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management graphic)

Maintenance operations requires highly skilled workers that are capable of working out on the ocean in exceptionally difficult conditions, said Hines.

“This is a challenging environment,” he said.

While the country is rapidly shifting to offshore wind energy, training workers to meet the need is a vital component of the transition.

That training is a significant part of a precedent-setting agreement between the world’s largest wind manufacturer and leading unions that promised good-paying jobs in the burgeoning and complex sector throughout the country.

That agreement was negotiated by Staten Islander Allison Ziogas, who noted that training union workers via embedded apprenticeship and journeyman training centers across the U.S. will function as a pipeline to building the workforce needed to maintain offshore wind farms.

“It’s a real priority to make sure that workers are properly trained, that they’re well supported,” said Hines. “We’ve got to create work, career security.”

Wind turbine test facility farm off shore of Hunterston, U.K.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The U.S. has set a goal to reach 30 gigawatts of offshore wind generation capacity by the end of the decade.

Looking further down the line, the country will have to exponentially grow its renewable energy portfolio to stave off the worst effects of global warming.

“If you think about 2050 and what we call the energy transition, we have to electrify our economy and then we have to produce that electricity with renewables in order to make our contribution our nation’s contribution to keeping global warming at less than 1.5 degrees centigrade,” said Hines, referring to the post-industrial era inflection point scientists say will need to be avoided to limit climate change effects.

The country will have to effectively triple its electricity generation capacity, said Hines, jumping from just over 1,000 gigawatts to 3,000 gigawatts of mostly wind and solar power. Around 300 gigawatts of that energy — or roughly 10% of the energy transition — is expected to come from offshore wind.

But, coastal areas like New York City that consume high levels of electricity will be closest to offshore wind farms, said Hines.

“So, from that point of view, a lot of the states are making big commitments to offshore wind because it’s a locally sourced form of power,” he said. “And right now the power grid in the East Coast flows from west to east, but the flows are going to change a little bit as we start integrating this offshore wind.”

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