Eversource Energy is joining forces with Virginia-based Dominion Energy and Danish power giant Orsted to charter a ship that will help the partner companies erect offshore wind farms along the East Coast.
Once completed, the 472-foot Charybdis will be deployed out of New London harbor to support construction of two Eversource-Orsted projects — Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind — off the coasts of Massachusetts and Long Island, company officials announced Tuesday. The vessel will then go south to assist Dominion crews building the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach.
The Charybdis is expected to be the first wind turbine installation ship in the country to be built in compliance with the Jones Act, a federal statute requiring that all goods transported between American ports must be carried on vessels constructed within the U.S.
In an interview Tuesday, Eversource President and CEO Joe Nolan said the partner companies had been discussing the joint venture for over a year.
“We thought it made a lot of sense for the parties to work together,” Nolan said. “We had other options that just weren’t as attractive to us.”
Calling the specialized ship the most “efficient” method for offshore construction, Nolan noted the Charybdis will be able to carry five or six turbine structures out to a lease area.
“We’re excited,” he said. “It’s an incredible feat of engineering, and we’re first in line to use it.”
The Charybdis is being built in a shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, using more than 14,000 tons of domestic steel. It is expected to be sea ready by late 2023.
A number of elected officials, including Gov. Ned Lamont, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and New London Mayor Michael Passero, praised the consortium’s announcement this week as another welcome milestone in the state’s ongoing effort to expand its renewable energy sector.
“All of this activity assists in advancing our state’s clean energy economy and helps position New London as a hub for the industry, delivering jobs and economic development to the city and Connecticut overall,” Lamont said.
Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind will together generate more than 1.6 gigawatts of renewable energy and power nearly 1 million homes in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York.
In February, Eversource and Orsted signed a host community agreement with New London to use the city’s State Pier facility as a staging area for the two wind farms. The partners plan to reconfigure and upgrade the site, with increased docking capacity for ships and space for assembling the turbines.
