Deepwater Wind
limited to about a dozen now, with day rates as high as $180,000, Bloomberg reported in May. “The day rates aren’t competitive now, and you’re paying the day rates for getting across the Atlantic,” said Anthony Logan, a senior analyst in Wood Mackenzie’s power and renewables group. A U.S.-flag WTIV “should have been built a couple of years ago” to be ready for the scale of projects now planned, said Logan. Feeder barges will be the necessity for the first installations, but with both Europe and North America set for major expansion in 2023 “there’s going to be some competition and it will raise rates” for existing WTIVs, he said. That demand will spur someone to build the first Jones Act-compliant installation vessel. With U.S. projects now in the pipeline, “the annual installations by our calculation is above what
Norway-based Fred.Olsen Windcarrier provided its construction vessel Brave Tern to build the Block Island Wind Farm alongside Montco Offshore liftboats.
they need” to finance the vessel, said Logan. The question is what that WTIV will need in capability, he added: “It’s a rapidly evolving industry. They are building 10- and 12-megawatt turbines now … you can’t use the same vessels that were state of the art five years ago. By the end of the next decades we could be looking at 20-megawatt turbines.”
With the accelerating growth of projects worldwide, some in the industry say the tight supply combined with the Jones Act will be a roadblock for U.S. developers. “It will be a hindrance,” said Edgare Kerkwijk of the Asia Wind Energy Association. “I cannot wait for the day that I do not have to answer a Jones Act question,” said Liz Burdock, president of the
POWER FORWARD
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