Size matters Local wind proponents play down effect of larger turbines on the way
A Wind Summit last month in New London, combined with some extracurricular reading, left me wondering if the 30-acre State Pier laydown area will be adequate to handle the increasingly massive turbines just starting to be manufactured today.
An article in The New Bedford Light about that city’s even smaller 29 acre wind-assembly area posed questions about whether the Port of New London would have enough room to accommodate these larger turbines. Each, when fully assembled, is the size of a skyscraper and intended to generate 15 megawatts of electricity compared with the smaller 6- to 12-megawatt turbines used in New London’s first South Fork Wind project.
Some experts have said these 15-megawatt turbines, and the even bigger ones yet to come, might be too large to be accommodated in New London and New Bedford, a site that has the added hindrance of a hurricane barrier. According to one 2023 report by Oceantic Network, the United States requires a minimum of
100 wind-energy port sites, and the industry prefers that such properties be about 50 acres.
So I asked Kristin Urbach, the new executive director of the CT Wind Collaborative, whether she had any concerns about the adequacy of New London’s more than $300 million wind-assembly site here. I asked the same question of Paul Whitescarver, who is on the board of the collaborative as well as being executive director of the regional development agency seCTer, and they both indicated it shouldn’t be a problem.
“I think the State Pier is well equipped, with the significant funding it has, to make those renovations ... it can handle more tonnage,” Urbach said. “It’ll be just a matter of expanding the area.”
She added that New London is part of a network of so-called marshaling areas where turbines will be assembled. In addition to New Bedford, other sites in the planning stages that will all be opening within about two years include Salem, Mass. (42 acres); Brooklyn, N.Y. (73 acres), and Staten Island, N.Y. (32 acres).
“All the states are playing a role in offshore wind because no one state can provide all of the
“I think the State Pier is well equipped, with the significant funding it has, to make those renovations ... it can handle more tonnage. It’ll be just a matter of expanding the area.” KRISTIN URBACH
CT WIND COLLABORATIVE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
supply, all that demand,” Urbach said.
Urbach doesn’t have a long history in the wind turbine industry, but then again few Americans do. In the past, she has been a hospital program administrator as well as being human resources director for the Washington D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute and presi
dent of the Junior League, of Washington, but for the past several years she was integral to building the wind industry in Rhode Island as director of the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce and a founder of the industry training program called WindWinRI.
The CT Wind Collaborative is a nonprofit funded largely by the state as well as the joint venture between Eversource and Ørsted.
Urbach said she brings a collaborative approach to everything she is involved with, and specializes in creating new programs. In Rhode Island, she created a turbine competition for students similar to the robotics clubs familiar to many of us in southeastern Connecticut.
“To have all the students there on a Saturday at The Innovation Center and at the University of Rhode Island, you know they started being somewhat timid,” Urbach said. “It was interesting too because at the beginning they weren't really talking and so I was the icebreaker to each group and ... their faces lit up. They immediately latched on and then from there it was incredible.”
Urbach also created wind-related training programs for both youths and adults, something she hopes to bring to Connecticut, most likely through local colleges and the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board. The programs she created in Rhode Island are nationally recognized for connecting employees to good-paying wind industry jobs.
She was responsible for creating the nation's first and, so far, only four-year offshore wind high school certification program. It's currently running at five high schools in Rhode Island, and to gain certification students need to go out and work in the field.
“The biggest pain point for all Industries and businesses is being able to identify and secure trained workers,” Urbach said. “The sooner that we have workforce training programs, the better position Connecticut will be in.”
Urbach said one of her first priorities at the new Groton office she shares with seCTer is to understand the breadth of Connecticut's companies and programs committed to wind industry activities.
“Right now what I'm doing is meeting with as many stakeholders that I can and conducting informational sessions to then learn about what the current activities are, where there's a gap in activities that should be occurring and then developing a plan from there on,” she said.
Just a few weeks ago, Urbach attended the Oeantic Network Forum in New Orleans attended by more than 5,000 people in the offshore wind industry. She said the Connecticut booth was positioned right next to the Rhode Island display to demonstrate the solidarity of the wind collaborative that also includes New York, though that state is still awaiting the completion of its first wind assembly site.
“A buzz and excitement about the state is actually formalizing,” Urbach said. “Connecticut's ahead of the curve.”
Urbach said she is confident State Pier in New London can sustain at least 10 years of turbine assembly, which corresponds with the 10-year contract Gateway New London signed to operate the port.
She also predicted that the wind industry in Connecticut and Rhode Island will create hundreds of jobs in the future, though definite numbers have not yet been projected.
“These (wind) farms need to be operated and maintained for 30 years,” Urbach said. “There's a significant amount of work.”
In Rhode Island, she added, “You see a lot of crew, transfer vessels, being built and then there's also the helicopter service,” which potentially could be brought to Groton-New London Airport.
The most likely scenario for engaging Connecticut businesses in the wind industry, she said, it to encourage current companies to switch some of their manufacturing and other capabilities to building wind components or providing services to support their construction and continued operation.
I interviewed Urbach a couple weeks ago when she was less than a month into her job. Clearly, she has a long way to go to help Connecticut's wind industry pull itself up by its bootstraps, but her track record in Rhode Island would indicate she's up for the job.
We can also hope the State Pier laydown area will prove sufficient for the bigger turbines on the way, though I expect that there will be the need for a variety of sizes that would keep New London viable well into the future. And, as the wind industry evolves, it's possible that there will be some limit to how big these behemoths can become as cost and efficiency are analyzed.
As the wind industry shifts, Connecticut will need to tack to stay on course. Urbach, calm and determined, seems like the right person to keep everyone heading in the right direction.