What’s next for New Bedford’s offshore wind terminal?

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

A decade ago, Massachusetts spent more than $100 million to develop a waterfront plot of dirt and gravel in New Bedford into a terminal for offshore wind projects.

For years, the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal stood as the country’s first and only offshore wind marshaling site. Because of delays in offshore wind development, it didn’t attract any marshaling work until the Vineyard Wind 1 project in 2023. 

Now the question is, how much more offshore wind work will it attract?

Since its design and construction, a lot has changed: wind projects were delayed or canceled; bigger specialty ports have come online or are due to finish construction by 2026; and turbines have grown substantially in size. 

Last month, when three offshore wind developers released their new project bids for New England, two of them proposed using marshaling ports in Salem or New London. And the one that proposed using New Bedford’s port also included options for doing the work at those other ports. 

Mayor Jon Mitchell, who for years has pushed for New Bedford to become a key hub for the wind industry, is expressing concern about a two- to three-year gap in wind activity at the terminal when Vineyard Wind 1 finishes construction.

“Eliminating every gap at a terminal that’s built for offshore wind marshaling, it’s very difficult to do … These are massive projects that require years of planning and timing,” Mitchell told The Light. He acknowledged that some gap may be unavoidable. “Ensuring there is some pipeline of business to fill that gap will be important.”

The wind developers’ plans raise the question of what’s next for the New Bedford terminal and what role it will play in getting more steel in the water for offshore wind projects. 

Turbine parts are huge — and they’re getting bigger

New Bedford’s 29-acre terminal, operated by quasi-state agency MassCEC, is specially engineered to support the heavy weight of cranes and wind turbines up to the terminal’s edge. There, vessels tie up to load and unload components too large to arrive by road or rail. 

It cost taxpayers about $113 million and was completed in 2015 — the same year its expected first tenant, Cape Wind, pulled out. Shortly after, MassCEC’s then-CEO said the agency was “quite concerned” about the future of the facility. For years, as offshore wind developers underwent reviews and received approvals from government agencies, the terminal found other work with cargo and shipping. 

Finally, in 2023, Vineyard Wind 1 began to use the terminal as intended. Enormous General Electric turbine components sailed into the Port of New Bedford from Portugal, the first of many to come from Europe and Canada. Since the summer, house-sized nacelles, vertical tower components, and stacks of football-field length blades have covered the site. 

Together, those parts form 13-megawatt turbines that are about double the size of the 3.6-megawatt turbines Cape Wind planned to use in 2015.

Developers in future projects intend to use even bigger turbines: 15 megawatts. To marshal those projects, they plan to use ports in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Salem. 

Avangrid and Vineyard Offshore (both parent companies of Vineyard Wind 1), in this latest bidding round, announced their intentions to use the not-yet-built terminal in Salem to store and partially assemble turbine components for their respective projects, New England Wind 1 and Vineyard Wind 2.

Ken Kimmell, vice president of offshore wind development at Avangrid, said the company is “very proud” that Vineyard Wind 1 was marshaled out of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. From Avangrid’s perspective, he said Salem offered another opportunity to bring the economic benefits of offshore wind to Massachusetts. 

“In order for the Commonwealth to meet its offshore wind goals, it would need two marshaling ports,” Kimmell said. 

He also said the New Bedford terminal was “booked for business” when they started planning their other projects. Per a 2020 release from the state, the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal was committed to “full-time offshore wind work from 2023 to 2027.”

However, with delays and downturns, that is no longer the case.

Can New Bedford handle bigger turbines?

As wind turbines get bigger, New Bedford’s terminal faces key questions: is it big enough to handle larger turbines? Is the hurricane barrier opening too narrow to accommodate bigger turbine components? 

MassCEC and its CEO Emily Reichert did not respond to several questions from The Light about plans for the terminal amid a possible period of inactivity, planned terminal expansion work, and whether the site can handle larger turbine components. 

The agency previously told The Light it plans to undertake an “improvement/expansion” project in 2025 that would redevelop some of the bulkhead and laydown area, but has not provided more information. MassCEC has said the work will not prevent the terminal’s use by an offshore wind developer, and that it offered an option to lease to all the developers in this latest round of bids.  

Spokespeople with Vineyard Offshore did not respond to several questions about why the company selected Salem. The Light also asked if the hurricane barrier has caused inefficiencies during Vineyard Wind 1 deployment that factored into the decision to marshal the next project out of Salem. 

“The industry may be hitting up against a natural limit of how big components like nacelles can get, and that might have implications for which ports are used,” Mitchell said.

Both Avangrid and Vineyard Offshore have proposed using various sites in New Bedford for other work, including operations and maintenance, and crane manufacturing. Mitchell said the proposals are “very positive” for the city, as operations and maintenance are long-term commitments (30 years compared to one or two for marshaling). Still, he said he does not want to see the terminal sit empty for too long. 

SouthCoast Wind said it plans to use the New Bedford terminal for its future project, but it also provided options to undertake that work in Salem or New London. It’s tentatively set to occupy the terminal after Vineyard Wind 1 finishes its work at the end of this year or early next. But with industry-wide project delays and contract cancellations, SouthCoast Wind may not be ready for offshore construction until 2027 or 2028.

“We have offered the states the flexibility as to where the jobs and investments associated with the Project will be located,” said Rebecca Ullman, SouthCoast Wind’s director of external affairs, in an email. “Our bid to the multi-state solicitation proposes to marshal and pre-assemble our turbines out of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal … We also provide the states with the option to marshal components out of Salem, MA or New London, CT.” 

She said the project will use one port for operations and maintenance, and that the company has proposed a port for each state, but would not provide information on where: “By providing the states with options, we have put them in the driver’s seat to decide what makes the most sense.”

Mitchell said SouthCoast Wind communicated to him that if Massachusetts bids on more than 50% of the project’s energy, then the company will base its marshaling out of New Bedford. 

“If it is infeasible for the terminal to share a significant amount of marshaling work, it will be important for the MassCEC to find cargo opportunities for the terminal, including from offshore wind projects based in other states,” wrote Mitchell in a letter to state officials and developers last month.

Demand for (bigger) ports

New Bedford hosts the country’s first offshore wind marshaling terminal, but it was never meant to be the only one. 

Industry and government reports emphasize the need to develop dozens of port facilities to support key activities for offshore wind deployment: marshaling, manufacturing, and operations and maintenance. 

Industry group Oceantic Network, in a 2023 report, estimated that the United States needs at least 100 port sites on both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico in order to support buildout of the industry.  

“Port infrastructure is one of the biggest bottlenecks for the United States offshore wind industry,” the report states. 

In a recent release, MassCEC noted that the “shortage of adequate port facilities” for offshore wind is one of the key risks for meeting state and national wind power goals, and that Massachusetts needs more than one marshaling port to meet its goals.

In the Northeast, six marshaling ports — which require the most space to store and lay down the major turbine pieces — are either in use or expected to be operational by 2026.  

Offshore wind marshaling ports in the U.S. will range from 30 to about 80 acres, though the report states the industry is beginning to prefer sites of at least 50 acres. This may in part be a result of growing turbine sizes, with upcoming projects anticipating 15-megawatt turbines. (The Vineyard Wind 1 project uses 13-megawatt turbines.) 

The Salem terminal — a public-private project by MassCEC, the city of Salem and Crowley Wind Services — will be about 42 acres.

Graham Tyson, vice president of operations for Crowley, described the Salem port as a bigger and “unrestricted” site: “Salem is on the larger end of terminals in the wind space. It’s an advantage in that it allows us to store more and larger components.” 

He said the terminal would have separate spaces for simultaneous loading in and loading out of components, as well as roll on/roll off access with ramps for larger items, like monopiles, that could also be stored on site. 

The Salem terminal is also slated to play a key role for floating offshore wind when it’s deployed in the Gulf of Maine.

Larger terminals could also host specialized wind turbine installation vessels (WTIVs) in addition to the feeder-barge system, in which tugboats accompany long but narrow barges.

WTIVs are wider than feeder barges, and would be too large to fit through New Bedford’s hurricane barrier. The country’s first Jones Act-compliant WTIV is still under construction, and there’s debate within the industry of which system is better for transporting turbines.

Tyson said there are “no significant restrictions” at the Salem terminal in width or in height that would prevent WTIVs from coming in, and that it would have the capacity to support turbines as big as 20 megawatts.

However, projects may not use components that large in the near future (or at all). Salem’s first tenant is slated to be Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 project. Per Avangrid officials, the turbines will likely be 15 megawatts — a size on par with New York’s Chrysler Building. 

Sam Salustro, vice president of communications at Oceantic Network, said the industry is grappling with uncertainty about future turbine size. Adopting larger (and more powerful) components, he said, would require costly upgrades to ensure that manufacturers, vessels and ports can build, transport and accommodate the components. 

“It’s been an enormous conversation not only here, but also in Europe, about what we call the supply chain cost of bigger turbines,” Salustro said. 

A government engineer cautioned about the risk that comes along with increasing the size, which is not only whether the ports and vessels can handle them, but also do so without causing significant project delays.

What’s next 

One of Avangrid’s proposed projects, New England Wind 1 (formerly Park City Wind), just became the eighth offshore wind project to receive approval from the federal government. It’s been described as shovel-ready, with nearly all required permits secured.

Kimmell said marshaling work in Salem would likely begin in 2027. 

Mitchell said he’s suggested some of Avangrid’s marshaling work could be done in New Bedford. Avangrid’s bid allows for the possibility of “optional” or “backup” facilities for marshaling in order to reduce delays and “operational inefficiencies” caused by weather, traffic or equipment issues. The public bid documents redact further information on the subject.

Kimmell said projects always need backups, but that their commitment (and substantial investment) for marshaling work is to Salem. 

Also further along in the permitting process is Orsted project Revolution Wind, which will use the New London terminal. Sunrise Wind, an Orsted project that also received federal approval last month, will also marshal its project out of New London.

The Light requested comment from Rebecca Tepper, the Massachusetts’ energy and environmental affairs (EEA) secretary and a MassCEC board member, but received a statement from a spokesperson.

“The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal is a centerpiece of our port infrastructure and vital to getting both Vineyard Wind 1 and future projects up and running,” EEA spokesperson Danielle Burney wrote. “To address our growing needs, it is critical we activate more ports up and down the coast of Massachusetts. The Salem Terminal is an important piece of our strategy, serving as an incredible opportunity for floating wind turbines and a complement to the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.

“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is committed to ensuring we have suitable port infrastructure that can help achieve our goals, and these two [marshaling] ports will solidify our offshore wind future,” Burney said.  

Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org. 

Editor’s note: This story was modified on Thursday, April 18, 2024, to update details on the Salem terminal.

---