Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway — Empire Offshore Wind, a joint venture between Equinor and bp, has awarded Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) a long-term service operations vessel charter agreement for the Empire Wind offshore wind farms.
According to Equinor, ECO’s plug-in hybrid service operations vessel will be the first in the U.S. offshore wind sector capable of sailing partly on battery power.
It will be able to accommodate up to 60 wind turbine technicians working on the Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 developments, under a 10-year charter agreement that starts in the mid-2020s.
The Jones Act-compliant, U.S.-flagged vessel will be based at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in New York. Suppliers from 34 states will provide components for the vessel’s construction.
ECO will operate the vessel from its New York office.
The vessel will sail into the port of South Brooklyn Marine Terminal on battery power, recharge it using shore power, then sail out of New York Harbor. It will be certified to Tier 4 emissions standards, said to be the highest for marine applications.
Empire Wind is 15 to 30 miles (24 km to 48 km) southeast of Long Island and covers an 80,000-acre area in with water depths of 75 ft to 135 ft (23 m to 41 m).
Total installed capacity of the two wind farms will be over 2 GW.
05.13.2022
