New York City Takes Its Biggest Step Yet for Offshore Wind

Previously published by TriplePundit

By Phil Covington

New York City will soon be home to one of the nation's largest offshore wind projects. In June, developers broke ground at the municipal South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT), an old container and general cargo port facility occupying 73 acres that will provide crucial services for Empire Wind 1, a federally approved offshore wind farm set to contribute 810 megawatts of clean electricity to New York’s power grid by 2027.

The groundbreaking builds on New York’s Green Economy Action Plan and Mayor Eric Adams’ efforts to develop a multifaceted “Harbor of the Future.” Both initiatives reimagine New York City’s waterfront and fuel 21st-century growth and innovation.

The newly imagined South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is poised to be far more than a support facility for wind energy. It will also play an important role in urban regeneration while providing important employment opportunities for union jobs paying family-sustaining wages.

”Transforming the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal into a hub for offshore wind is an investment in New York City’s economy on a generational scale,” said Molly Morris, president of Equinor, the company which will develop the Marine Terminal site and Empire Wind 1.

The terminal was last used by a car importer but sat derelict for over a decade. Back in 2015, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) put the site on the market “to figure out what could be feasible to bring new life to this parcel of land,” said Sam Jung, vice president of renewable energy industry development on NYCEDC’s Green Economy team.

In September 2021, the city and NYCEDC unveiled a 15-year, $191 million Offshore Wind Vision Plan to make New York a leading destination for the industry. To deliver on that vision, in March 2022 New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an agreement between NYCEDC, Equinor, and Sustainable South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, L.P. (SSBMT) — a partnership between Industry City and the Red Hook Container Terminal — to transform the terminal into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation.

Leaders in the Sunset Park neighborhood, along with the Brooklyn-based environmental justice organization UPROSE, came together to put forward a community-based vision for the terminal and the community. The goal was to transform the area into a sustainable and green industrial waterfront. “The idea that it could be a wind port facility was really seen by them,” Jung said.

How do onshore terminals support offshore wind?

Most people are familiar with offshore wind farms, but the onshore component may be less obvious. The South Brooklyn Marine Terminal will serve as an onshore support hub, maintaining necessary functions both during the wind farm’s construction and on an ongoing basis for future operations.

The terminal will serve as an operations and maintenance center for the wind farm and as a staging and assembly area for wind turbine components. It will also host an electricity substation that will connect wind electricity generated offshore to the grid. “The lease for the site will go through 2054, demonstrating NYC’s commitment to the clean energy future,” Jung said.

The project will create more than 1,000 jobs during construction, 200 turbine assembly jobs, and approximately 50 permanent positions once the terminal is completed.

New jobs support community impact 

Equinor aims to award 30 percent of project opportunities to minority- and women-owned businesses, and where possible, the build-out will draw upon labor from local neighborhoods and New York City more broadly.

Equinor signed a project labor agreement which prioritizes Sunset Park residents, New York City labor union members, and low- or very low-income New Yorkers for jobs at the terminal. “We are committed to creating opportunities for New Yorkers to secure well-paying careers in the growing renewable energy industry,” said Morris of Equinor.

Crews, many of them from women-owned businesses in the area, spent the first half of the summer taking down old buildings to make way for the planned terminal. As the site moves to the next stage, locals hired into union jobs will begin constructing the necessary infrastructure to support the waterfront project.

”There’s a lot of labor that goes into this. From the laborers to the carpenters, to the welders, to the dock builders, everybody works hand-in-hand,” said Kirt McCarthy, a 25-year veteran of the New York City District Council of Carpenters union. “As we go along, by months and quarters, it’s like a puzzle — it comes together in pieces. In my 25 years in the union, I’ve been at a lot of big sites and every one is different, so every day is a learning experience.”

Experienced workers like McCarthy are close by to help the younger apprentices, perpetuating an ongoing process of bringing up the next generation who will have access to family-sustaining wages through union work. “I feel this wind farm is going to grow roots in the neighborhood and the city,” McCarthy said. "The labor aspect of it is great, and I hope we can get some more projects like this in New York City.”

Jung of NYCEDC hopes the revitalization of the area will create a new walk-to-work community that will grow. “From the city’s perspective, we’re leveraging this moment to seed other investment in the area [and] make South Brooklyn a new center of gravity for other climate-related activities,” he said.

Public funding of the project has already garnered multiples in private investment. On the public side, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) awarded a grant of $60 million to the project, augmented by $105 million in city capital. These investments leveraged $1 billion in private capital from Norway-based Equinor, an important injection of direct investment for the city. “We are proud to say that this combination of public funding is unlocking a ton of private value for New Yorkers,” Jung said.

Upskilling New Yorkers for offshore wind and maritime careers 

The city also invested heavily to support workforce development and spread awareness of the career opportunities the terminal will bring about. That includes annual offshore wind and maritime career fairs, a more than $10 million investment in the local City University of New York (CUNY) system for workforce programing and facilities, and an emerging partnership with the Harbor School, a public high school on New York City’s Governors Island that focuses on maritime careers.

Students at the Harbor School will have a chance to see the city’s budding offshore wind sector take shape through an internship program with Edison Chouest Offshore, the company that will build and operate Equinor’s services operations vessel. The ship will be utilized in the operations and maintenance functions for Empire Wind 1 and will be home-ported at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. 

“SUNY Maritime College’s Global Wind Organization training programs are collaboratively leading New York State’s energy transition by supporting the forward-looking, diverse and sustainable workforce of the future,” said James Spear, director of professional mariner training at the State University of New York’s Maritime College. “As part of the nation’s first maritime academy, we’re excited to help our fellow New Yorkers build an inclusive and efficient tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, city-supported Workforce One centers, including a location at NYCEDC’s Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in Sunset Park, that aim to enroll everyday New Yorkers into pre-apprenticeship programs “so that people from all across New York, but particularly Sunset Park, can begin the process of getting into good-paying, family-sustaining union jobs, like Kirt is in,” Jung said.

Laying the groundwork for other cities to follow 

The planned terminal also supports New York state’s climate goals which include generating 9 gigawatts of offshore wind electricity by 2035. “We are in lockstep with the state and federal government to realize these goals,” Jung said. “This redevelopment is in service of a more livable future for New Yorkers, and doing it in a way that supports those historically underserved and impacted communities from the fossil-fuel industry, so they can benefit from these renewable energy investments.”

Jung and his team at NYCEDC believe the terminal will serve as a model for how renewable energy development can promote minority- and women-owned businesses, forge partnerships with environmental justice groups, and trigger reinvestments that benefit the local community.

“At a localized scale, [the terminal] is set up to have a robust and long future,” Jung said. But success will ultimately depend upon factors that still hang in the balance.

The terminal is designed to host services for Empire Wind 1, but it is built with sufficient capacity to serve other wind farms, too. This means part of the terminal’s success will depend on ensuring a consistent and reliable pipeline for offshore wind developments in the future. 

One thing which might impact that pipeline is confidence within the industry. “The industry looks to the public sector for reliability,” Jung said. “In an election year, there can be concern about what a change in administration might do to an emerging industry.” To this end, he said the city is doing as much as it can to enable the industry to succeed.

Over recent years, factors like high interest rates, higher commodity prices, supply chain constraints and even the war in Ukraine also manifested as unforeseen barriers.

Even still, the transition from a derelict piece of land to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal is an important and optimistic one. “As the offshore wind industry continues to grow, it is critically important to continue developing a highly skilled workforce and pathways to family-sustaining union careers for New Yorkers interested in entering the industry,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. “Our members are proud to be working on the redevelopment of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.”

Kirt McCarthy of the District Council of Carpenters agreed. “I hope this could be the beginning of many more successful projects like this one that will help the city and help the community, and I’m thankful.”