Maersk, US developer Apex team up for offshore wind projects
A division of US developer Apex Wind Energy has formed a partnership with Danish container shipping giant Maersk Line to support development, financing and construction of utility-scale offshore wind projects in North America.
They include one off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and others in federal waters facing Maryland and North Carolina. The fourth project is in Lake Erie in waters owned by New York State.
Maersk Line Ltd (MLL), a US-flag subsidiary of AP Moeller-Maersk Group, views offshore wind energy as a way for it to expand an existing portfolio of maritime technical and transportation services.
The “working relationship", as the two sides call it, is the latest move among wind developers and turbine manufacturers in the US to ally themselves with companies that have experience working in challenging maritime environments and can share the higher cost of moving turbines to sea.
Perhaps the best known example is Spain’s Gamesa teaming-up with US defence contractor Northrop Grumman , a builder of aircraft carriers and submarines, to develop and launch new offshore wind turbine designs.
In Maine, the DeepCWind consortium, led by the University of Maine, is a vertically-integrated, multi-disciplinary consortium that is developing deepwater floating wind turbine systems. The consortium includes defence contractor General Dynamics, which builds naval submarines and surface ships, and a range of companies involved in offshore construction and marine-structures manufacturing.
Apex has filed formal requests for commercial lease areas for the Virginia and North Carolina projects with the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the arm of the US Interior Department that oversees wind energy development in federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf.
It also responded in January to a BOEMRE request for information from developers interested in obtaining a lease for wind development off Maryland. The 500MW Lake Erie project is in waters identified by a state-supported feasibility study as having strong wind resource, shallow depths, access to transmission and manageable conflicting uses.
Apex says its management has been directly involved in the development, procurement or financing of about 4.4GW of onshore wind farms now in commercial operation.
President Barack Obama’s administration has set a goal of generating 10GW of offshore wind energy at 10 cents per kWh by 2020 and 54GW at 7 cents/kWh by 2030.
“To meet these ambitious goals, the rapid growth of the offshore wind energy industry in North American will require maritime players with significant experience, scale and resources, and a reputation for quality, responsibility, and safety,” says Tim Ryan, president of Apex Offshore Wind. “Maersk Line brings all of those vital elements into this collaboration.”
“MLL has chosen to partner with Apex to speed the process of bringing offshore wind to North America,” says Greg Moore, vice president of business development at MLL. “In Apex, we’ve found a partner that shares our values and entrepreneurial spirit, and that is committed to bringing this promising new energy resource to the continent.”
They include one off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and others in federal waters facing Maryland and North Carolina. The fourth project is in Lake Erie in waters owned by New York State.
Maersk Line Ltd (MLL), a US-flag subsidiary of AP Moeller-Maersk Group, views offshore wind energy as a way for it to expand an existing portfolio of maritime technical and transportation services.
The “working relationship", as the two sides call it, is the latest move among wind developers and turbine manufacturers in the US to ally themselves with companies that have experience working in challenging maritime environments and can share the higher cost of moving turbines to sea.
Perhaps the best known example is Spain’s Gamesa teaming-up with US defence contractor Northrop Grumman , a builder of aircraft carriers and submarines, to develop and launch new offshore wind turbine designs.
In Maine, the DeepCWind consortium, led by the University of Maine, is a vertically-integrated, multi-disciplinary consortium that is developing deepwater floating wind turbine systems. The consortium includes defence contractor General Dynamics, which builds naval submarines and surface ships, and a range of companies involved in offshore construction and marine-structures manufacturing.
Apex has filed formal requests for commercial lease areas for the Virginia and North Carolina projects with the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the arm of the US Interior Department that oversees wind energy development in federal waters on the Outer Continental Shelf.
It also responded in January to a BOEMRE request for information from developers interested in obtaining a lease for wind development off Maryland. The 500MW Lake Erie project is in waters identified by a state-supported feasibility study as having strong wind resource, shallow depths, access to transmission and manageable conflicting uses.
Apex says its management has been directly involved in the development, procurement or financing of about 4.4GW of onshore wind farms now in commercial operation.
President Barack Obama’s administration has set a goal of generating 10GW of offshore wind energy at 10 cents per kWh by 2020 and 54GW at 7 cents/kWh by 2030.
“To meet these ambitious goals, the rapid growth of the offshore wind energy industry in North American will require maritime players with significant experience, scale and resources, and a reputation for quality, responsibility, and safety,” says Tim Ryan, president of Apex Offshore Wind. “Maersk Line brings all of those vital elements into this collaboration.”
“MLL has chosen to partner with Apex to speed the process of bringing offshore wind to North America,” says Greg Moore, vice president of business development at MLL. “In Apex, we’ve found a partner that shares our values and entrepreneurial spirit, and that is committed to bringing this promising new energy resource to the continent.”