By Frank Kummer, Philadelphia Inquirer
Few realized until President Joe Biden’s visit to the city Thursday that the Philly Shipyard could become a player in the offshore wind industry emerging off the Eastern seaboard.
The shipyard signed a contract as far back as 2021 to build the Acadia, a 461-foot-long, highly specialized vessel that’s needed to get the skyscraper-high turbines set in the seafloor. A key boost for the shipyard: An old and obscure federal law known as the Jones Act that requires vessels transporting cargo within the U.S. to be built in the U.S. instead of overseas.
Who is building the Acadia?
The Acadia is being built at the Philly Shipyard for the Houston-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp., the country’s largest dredging operation, which has jumped into the offshore wind business.
At least initially, the ship would be used for the Empire Offshore Wind project, a joint venture between Equinor and BP for wind farms approved off the New York coast.
Biden announced Thursday during a steel-cutting ceremony for the ship that it would be the first offshore wind vessel of its kind to be made in the United States.
The vessel would be built by the pool of 1,400 workers and nine unions based at the shipyard, according to Matthew Cassidy, a spokesperson for the shipyard. The ship’s steel plates will be made by United Steelworkers in Indiana. Biden said the activity surrounding the ship would generate an estimated $125 million a year as it is being built.
The ship is expected to be complete for delivery in 2025, according to the Philly Shipyard’s second quarter report, and is about 6% complete.
What will the ship do?
The vessel would be used as part of subsea rock installation work for the Empire Wind I and II wind farms to be built off the coast of New York, according to Great Lakes Dredge & Dock company literature. The two wind farms would have the capacity to provide power to more than one million homes in New York.
The rock installation will be used to protect and stabilize monopile foundations, electrical substructures, and export cables by the mid-2020s, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock said.
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