U.S. offshore wind developer Vineyard Wind has partnered up with the Danish offshore services firm Semco Maritime to create a service and maintenance hub in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and hire up to 40 people "in the coming years."
Semco Maritime plans to hire local residents in a variety of positions, including management, staff technicians, specialists, engineers, and administration.
The partnership agreement is contingent on Vineyard Wind's Commonwealth Wind proposal being selected by the state in the most recent round of solicitation for offshore wind energy. Commonwealth Wind is a newly proposed offshore wind project submitted to Massachusetts’ third competitive offshore wind solicitation.
If awarded, Commonwealth Wind will be developed in an area 22 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard that was designated by the federal government in 2015 following a multi-year stakeholder process.
According to Vineyard Wind, Commonwealth Wind can deliver up to 1,200 MW of clean and affordable energy to Massachusetts, power 750,000 homes in Massachusetts, create over 11,000 jobs (FTE), catalyze hundreds of millions of investments in offshore wind infrastructure, and deliver substantial commitments to environmental justice communities.
Vineyard Wind also announced that Semco has been selected as the preferred supplier for maintenance of the foundations and electric service platform (ESP) for the company’s Vineyard Wind 1 project, a project off the Massachusetts coast near Martha's Vineyard, which recently became the first offshore wind project in the U.S. to achieve financial close.
Vineyard Wind will create enough electricity to power 400,000 homes in New England. The project will begin delivering electricity to the grid in the second half of 2023.