Crowley has completed the purchase of 42 acres in Salem, Massachusetts, which will serve as the future home of the Salem Harbor Wind Terminal, the second major offshore wind port terminal in the state.
The terminal site project will result in the redevelopment of the former Salem Harbor Station, a decommissioned coal-fired energy plant creating more than 800 jobs (FTE job years) in the support of the construction and staging of offshore wind projects and daily operations.
“This critical project will bring hundreds of good paying jobs and millions in direct investment to Salem and is critical to the Commonwealth’s ability to achieve our clean energy targets”, said Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll .
The Salem Harbor Wind Terminal is a public-private partnership signed between Crowley and the city of Salem, with AVANGRID serving as the port’s anchor tenant through its Commonwealth Wind and Park City Wind projects.
The terminal will be a logistics and operations center for turbine pre-assembly, transportation, staging activities, and storage of assembly components.
The 1,200 MW Commonwealth Wind project represents the largest offshore wind project in New England, said Crowley, which will create 11,000 full-time equivalent jobs over the project’s lifetime while generating enough energy to power 750,000 homes annually.
The 804 Park City Wind is an offshore wind project that is expected to power 400,000 homes per year in Connecticut.
Crowley Wind Services, the company’s wind energy unit, will operate the terminal upon completion which is planned for 2025 while the construction is expected to start next year.
In May, Massachusetts’s Baker-Polito Administration decided to invest USD 100 million as part of the government fiscal year supplemental budget for 2022 to support offshore wind ports in Salem, New Bedford, and Somerset.
“Crowley’s acquisition of this site in Salem marks an important step forward for Massachusetts’ offshore wind industry and the development of the critical port infrastructure needed to build a clean energy future in the United States”, said Pedro Azagra , AVANGRID CEO.