Port Facility Requirements for Construction of Modular Concrete Substructures for Offshore Wind

This paper discusses a conceptual construction plan and assesses Northeastern port facilities for their suitability for the fabrication, assembly, and deployment of 67 turbines on modular concrete foundations for a hypothetical 1-gigawatt offshore windfarm valued at about $3 billion in the New England or New York Bight Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Call Area. The paper defines site and facility criteria for construction, assembly, and storage of the foundations and turbine marshalling. Existing and planned port facilities that can meet these criteria are identified and different hypothetical supply chain scenarios are discussed for these facilities for concrete fabrication based in either New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. The paper gives an indication of the scope and scale needed to prepare East Coast ports for offshore wind.