The president of Orsted North America, the Danish company that will build offshore wind farms in the U.S., broke ground on its new office in New London, Connecticut, yesterday.
Thomas Brostrom says despite federal government hold-ups on the separate Vineyard Wind project in Massachusetts, he feels the industry will grow.
“Fairly optimistic that hopefully in a few months, they’ve had time to study some of the cumulative impacts that they’re looking at, what does that mean for some of the other stakeholders and then probably when we’re just on the other side of the New Year, you will see that we start to move forward again.”
Orsted and power company Eversource are in a joint venture to create offshore wind farms for renewable electricity in New England and the Eastern Seaboard.
New London Mayor Mike Passero says the city is close to a new deal with the two organizations over the use of the city’s State Pier for their operations.
“They are working through some challenges. I don’t see any of them as insurmountable. The city has been working with Orsted and Eversource on a community host agreement. We’re very, very confident that we’re there and very happy with what we see as the results of that.”
Passero says he hopes the new deal will be agreed to by next week, which would pave the way for New London to become the hub for future wind turbine construction projects.