b'14American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comOffshore floating a wind energy solutionUS WIND POWERfor US energy gap Innovators floating-wind design puts industry on solid foundation.By Gary Burrows, AJOTThe U.S. offshore wind industry is facing a resettially, the supply chain is going to build up. I think in 2024, particularly for floating offshore wind, saidthe supply chain knows theres a big pipeline coming Habib Dagher, founder and executive director of theforward, and the plants are being built, facilities are University of Maine Advanced Structures and Com- being prepared, port facilities are being built, vessels posite Center. are being built and inflationary pressures are starting The reset is necessary due to costs driven up fromto ease. So, all of that is happening as we speak, and supply chain issues, exacerbated by the pandemic,needs some time to catch up with the demand.infrastructure, and inflation, he said. Some powerThe U.S. government has stepped in to provide purchase agreements signed two or three years agofavorable tax guidance that weve been awaiting are no longer able to cover the cost, he said. for some time, he said. Some states are stepping in Dagher, who has been working in the floatingto rebid project agreements, particularly New York, wind space for 17 years, said the industrys plightNewJerseyandMassachusetts,theepicenterof is no different than what the construction and trans- floating offshore wind development.portation industries face. However, floating wind isTheresaverystrongrecognitionfromboth an industry thats trying to get born in this environ- state and federal government and agencies that weve ment; that makes it a lot harder. tried to do too much too quick and havent really The nascent industry faces a Biden administra- accounted for inflation and other costs, he said. The Volturn US design utilizes a concrete semisubmersible tion goal to have 30 gigawatts of U.S. fixed-bottomDespite moves aimed at making up for lost time,floating hull and a composite materials tower designed to offshore wind installed by 2030, with an additionalits unknown how quickly the industry can recoverreduce both capital and operation and maintenance costs and 15 GW of floating wind by 2035. However, energy(SOLUTIONcontinued on page 15) to allow local manufacturing.(Source: Jplourde Umaine)research analyst BloombergNEF says manufactur-ing of wind energy is 29% off that goal, with only 16.4 GW expected by 2030.W inds hoT About two-thirds of viable U.S. offshore wind resources are in deeper waters that cant use fixed-bottom, so floating wind unlocks two-thirds of U.S. offshore wind resources, Dagher said. The federal government has declared floating wind as a U.S. earth shotthey call it the wind shot, he said. These innovations in hull design and hull technologies are going to drive the floating wind industry forward.With some bizarre and false public statements about negative environmental and health impacts of wind energy, floating wind can skirt the not-in-my-backyard syndrome, he said.The beauty of floating wind is, you can prefab-ricate this hull and throw them out beyond the hori-zon where nobody knows they exist because they fall beyond the horizon, he said. It minimizes the impacts on the fisheries, the environment, and the birds and bats and mammals.More relevant is the fact that winds typically are much more beneficial the farther offshore theyre placed, he added.h ull oFF aMEUMaines Advanced Structures and Composite Centers core work is in the floating wind space. We have about 47 engineers that just work on float-ing wind in our laboratory, Dagher said.The fruits of the Centers labor are a floating turbine,whichusesanext-generationsemi-sub-mersible floating hull, VolturnUS. Its smaller and easier to build, reducing the weight and footprint of the hull by 20% to 30%. The turbines will also be more quickly and easily produced and deployed off the coast of Monhegan Island, Maine.VolturnUSs hull has a tuned mass damper, also known as a harmonic absorber or seismic damper,HEAVY LIFTINGa device mounted in structures to reduce mechani-cal vibrations. The damper negates the motion of the waves, making the turbine more stable, and remov- DONE RIGHTing the need to weight and size to stabilize.Thinkofbuildingsinearthquakes,hesaid. In earthquakes in California, youll see buildings that have a mass that moves back and forth at the top of the building that actually negates the motion of the earthquake. Our cargo-handling capabilities save time and money. Capableofbeinglocallymanufactured,the plus-sign-shaped tower is created from compositeLet the port thatworks be your gateway to North America and beyond. materials to reduce capital, operation, and mainte-nance costs. The hull was funded through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) competitive Atlantis Program, whose goal is to develop next-generation floatingwindtechnologiesthataretransforma- 1000 Foust Road, Brownsville, TX 78521tional rather than evolutional, Dagher said. (956) 831-4592(800) 378-5395s oluTionsc oMing portofbrownsville.comRegarding the wind energy supply chain, Dagher said the issues all have solutions in them. Essen-'