Born in the USA: How Shipyards are Building for American Offshore Wind

Aluminum can be a tricky material to weld. 

It’s delicate, susceptible to environmental factors such as humidity, must be kept free of dust or contaminants, and requires those working with it to have specialized training. 

It's also the preferred material for crew transfer vessels (CTVs), ships built for the offshore wind industry to transport service teams to project sites for daily maintenance or repairs. Aluminum is light, strong, and allows the vessels to move swiftly from shore to site, sometimes more than once a day. 

As U.S. shipyards have received new-build CTV contracts for the burgeoning offshore wind market, they’ve met this challenging material head-on, developing in-house expertise and training — a nearly full-time effort, said Ted W. , President of Senesco Marine LLC . For nearly three years, his Rhode Island shipbuilding and repair yard has built up its aluminum welding capabilities, bringing in consultants and a technical weld quality manager to raise the skills of welders and establish best practices. The investment has been well worth it. 

Offshore wind accounted for between 40%-70% of the shipyard’s work over the past year and yielded considerable employee growth. Senesco’s job count increased from about 160 in March 2022, to 400 last November (not including roughly 200 more employed through vendors and external support). With the first four CTVs now complete and servicing South Fork and Revolution Wind, that figure has settled around 300 in the Rhode Island yard.  

As Senesco nears completion of its fifth aluminum CTV in 32 months (with one more still to go), Williams is hopeful new offshore wind-related contracts are coming, but acknowledges things have felt uncertain as the American market continues to emerge from a period of economic turmoil. Inflation and global factors led once-viable projects to cull offtake agreements back to the drawing board, altering project pipelines and slowing the stream of investments — all while the U.S. tested a new environmental regulatory system for the industry.  

Things have since begun to settle, but without more certainty in the market pipeline, the shipyard and others like it are watching and waiting to see what the future holds for its next offshore wind contracts. Although a lapse in work for Senesco’s aluminum welders could potentially make it difficult to retain the impressive team he’s built. 

“I’d really like to be able to keep that opportunity and that team going,” Williams said. 

In the meantime, Senesco and its sister company WindServe Marine are looking elsewhere for aluminum vessel contracts. Williams noted the shipyard has contracts for both aluminum and steel ferries, and the capacity to take on other types of work, including launching a specialized barge division under which Senesco plans to construct a 140' x 50' deck barge on spec. 

Senesco’s story is one Oceantic Network has heard time and again in our visits and conversations with member companies. The successful windfall of offshore wind contracts from the past several years is winding down, and businesses now find themselves eager to lock in new ones to maintain the level of employment, revenue, or expertise they generated over that period. 

For some, like legacy Great Lakes shipbuilder Fincantieri Marine Group Bay Shipbuilding, securing a tangible pipeline is also tied to capitalizing on federal tax credits created through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The company is building a Service Operation Vessel (SOV) for CREST Wind (Crowley and ESVAGT A/S), which will be used to service Dominion Energy ’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. The IRA’s tax credit could be a catalyst to build more SOV’s, but that credit is set to begin phasing out in 2030 and is based on delivery of the vessel, which typically take a few years to build. Therefore, it’s critical the credit be extended, Fincantieri’s Vice President of Business Development, Justin Slater , told us during a recent visit. 

U.S. shipyards building for offshore wind find themselves in a unique position, one of great impact with far less influence. The industry cannot be successful without them. It requires dozens more ships to close the existing gap, which translates to thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact across the country. Yet, without a clear pipeline of future projects, investors are shy about placing orders for new vessels — even if the timeline to complete them is lengthy and likely to outlast the current uncertainty. 

Despite such challenges, one thing remains clear — these projects yield jobs. 

Take the recent delivery of the ECO Edison for example, a new SOV from developer Ørsted and Louisiana shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore . The project yielded over 600 jobs across 34 states. And there’s more such work underway now too. In Pennsylvania, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company, LLC Corp. and Philly Shipyard, Inc. are mid-construction on a subsea rock installation vessel, and in Brownsville, Texas offshore wind turbine installation vessel Charybdis is nearing completion at Seatrium AmFELS, Inc. shipyard. All three are the first Jones Act-compliant vessels of their kind built for the U.S. market, just a portion of the 40-plus new and retrofitted offshore wind vessels that have been ordered thus far.  

For an in-depth breakdown of the U.S. vessels market, explore this recent article from our Policy team, and subscribe to this newsletter for the latest stories about how offshore wind is putting America to work.