Execs: LIers to be hired to maintain wind farms, build substations
Orsted's Grant van Wyngaarden said the company will use technicians based on a ship in Port Jefferson. Credit: Newsday/James T. Madore
Long Islanders will likely find work in maintaining the five wind farms that have been proposed for the region's waters and in constructing substations to deliver the windmills' electricity to homes, industry executives said Wednesday.
That’s welcome news to local business leaders and potential employees because most of the construction and assembly of the farms’ foundations, towers and turbines is to be done in Albany, Buffalo and Brooklyn under agreements with New York State.
Port Jefferson ship
Grant van Wyngaarden, deputy head of procurement for wind farm developer Orsted, said it plans to hire residents of Nassau and Suffolk counties and to purchase goods and services locally.
The Denmark-based company began recruiting technicians a couple of weeks ago to monitor and make repairs to its Sunrise Wind farm once it begins operating in 2025. The workers also will maintain the company’s wind farm off Block Island, Rhode Island, and another near Cape Cod, he said.
The technicians will be based in Port Jefferson and work from a 260-foot-long ship.
"Orsted has just recently kicked off a hiring campaign for technicians that would be involved there," van Wyngaarden said during the first day of a two-day virtual conference for businesses and job seekers organized by the state Energy Research and Development Authority.
He said another company, Edison Chouest in Louisiana, will construct and operate the maintenance ship that 60 wind-farm technicians will work from at any given time. The ship’s crew will be hired separately.
Sunrise Wind, located 30 miles east of Montauk Point, is to produce 924 megawatts of electricity to be delivered to 600,000 homes via a substation in Holbrook. Building the substation will involve local contractors and construction workers, van Wyngaarden said.
Orsted and its partner, New England electricity provider Eversource, announced last week that Siemens Energy and Aker Solutions will build the first-of-its-kind high-voltage direct current substation.
"There’s going to be a very large construction project that’s mostly going to be in Suffolk County," he said, responding to a Newsday question. "That project is going to pull in a significant amount of [construction] trades" workers, many represented by unions.
Jennifer Garvey, Orsted's New York market affairs manager, noted it will also use Montauk for an operations and maintenance center. Newsday has previously reported the company was deciding between Montauk and Rhode Island for the center.
She told the conference audience of about 130 people on Wednesday that Montauk would be home to special "purpose-built" ships that travel to and from the wind farm "on a regular basis" with parts and technicians.
Equinor substation
Equinor, the other wind farm developer in the state, has plans for a substation in Island Park to deliver 1,260 megawatts from its Empire Wind II farm off Jones Beach State Park. The farm will open in 2027 and power more than 1 million homes.
"We will be engaging with suppliers to help us with cable routes. …There are definitely a lot of activities that will be ongoing," said Kristian Sumstad, project procurement manager for Equinor in Norway. "Contracts will be coming …in the coming year."
The conference continues Friday at 9 a.m. and includes a virtual job fair with 200 openings, according to Doreen Harris, CEO of the state energy development authority. — With Mark Harrington
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
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