Offshore wind farms to generate nearly $4 billion for NYS businesses
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
That's how business owners on Long Island described winning a share of the nearly $4 billion in offshore wind-farm contracts set aside for New York State firms.
Local companies are supplying concrete, rebar and ocean-floor coverings to protect the electrical cable that will connect one wind farm's turbines to a substation in East Hampton. Others are building an operations center in East Setauket and providing transportation for the scientists and engineers who are creating a cable pathway in Long Island Sound for another farm.
Five offshore wind farms are to be built off Montauk Point and Long Beach over the next few years. Four are required to award some of their contracts to businesses in the state, under agreements signed with a state authority.
“We’re talking about work being generated for another decade; it’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Thomas Montalbine, president of Roman Stone Construction Co. in Bay Shore.
The manufacturer of precast concrete won its second contract last month to produce concrete "mattresses," or protective coverings, for South Fork Wind’s electrical cable. The wind farm is expected to start producing electricity late this year.
Roman Stone's mattresses are 9 feet by 20 feet and weigh 22,000 pounds each. They are deployed to hold the electrical cable on the seabed in places where it cannot be buried because other cables such as telecommunications lines are already there. Those cables are also protected by the mattresses.
The two contracts won by Roman Stone, together totaling about $500,000, represent a small percentage of the company's annual sales of between $15 million and $16 million. But if additional orders come in, Montalbine said, he may need to add a couple of people to his unionized production staff of 50.
Roman Stone, founded in 1903, gained entry to the offshore wind industry by establishing a partnership with Subsea Protection Systems Ltd., a British company that sells concrete mattresses to wind farms around the globe. Subsea agreed to provide its design and engineering expertise to Roman Stone in return for a percentage of the contracts’ value.
“Offshore wind is over 30 years old in Europe and there are companies with a lot of experience in supplying the industry,” Montalbine said. “You have to find the right contact in Europe and establish a relationship with them to be their partner in the United States.”
He continued, “It took me awhile to figure that out. I was talking to the wrong people and got nowhere” for months.
One of the individuals who helped Montalbine find his way is Marjaneh Issapour, an engineering professor at Farmingdale State College who recently opened National Wind Services Corp., a consulting firm in Woodbury.
“Every business has a niche and shouldn’t reshape itself for offshore wind,” she said. “Stick to what’s your expertise and see if there is a role that you can play.”
Issapour and others said business owners in Nassau and Suffolk counties shouldn’t be discouraged that the major components of wind farms -- blades, turbines, towers and foundations -- will be assembled in New York City and upstate from imported parts.
“So, you cannot build the turbine but maybe you can supply the grease that it takes to maintain the turbine,” Issapour said. “There are opportunities for local businesses because New York State is requiring the [offshore wind farm] developers and their major contractors to have local content, even if it costs them a little bit more.”
The developers have signed contracts stipulating that they spend nearly $4 billion, among four of the wind farms, with businesses in the state. No such requirement exists for South Fork Wind but the developer expects to spend $100 million with companies in the state, officials said.
For four of the offshore wind farms, their in-state expenditures must be made during the construction phase through the third year of operation, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which regulates the industry.
The state will provide incentive payments to support the construction and operation of the wind farms. The payments will result in an average increase of less than $2 per month on residential electric bills, NYSERDA projections show.
The developers are Orsted, the Danish company that operates the first offshore wind farm in the United States near Block Island in Rhode Island, and Equinor of Norway.
Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, is partnering with Eversource, a New England-based utility company, on two projects east of Montauk Point: South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind.
Equinor, in partnership with bp, formerly the British Petroleum Co., is building two projects south of Long Beach: Empire Wind I and Empire Wind II. The partnership’s third project is Beacon Wind I, 60 miles east of Montauk and 20 miles south of Nantucket.
Equinor and Orsted are among the developers that submitted proposals to the state last month for additional wind farms to be located south and east of Long Island. NYSERDA is expected to announce the winning proposals this spring.
Among the five wind farms that have been approved, South Fork Wind is the smallest, with 12 turbines, and the furthest along in construction. The electricity will be purchased by the Long Island Power Authority.
Much of South Fork Wind's onshore construction is being performed by Haugland Group LLC.
The Melville-based firm is building a 100,000-square-foot substation in East Hampton and last fall dug a four-mile trench and installed a conduit system for the electrical cable in Wainscott, from the water’s edge to the substation.
“We’re going to pursue every contract because something like offshore wind only happens once in a lifetime,” said CEO Billy Haugland II, adding that his company worked on the Block Island Wind Farm in 2016 and 2021.
He said the South Fork Wind contracts represent about 10% of Haugland Group’s annual sales of more than $500 million. But the other wind farms are larger – and so will bring larger contracts and more jobs.
Haugland Group has already won a contract to help with the installation of the electrical cable for Sunrise Wind. The company employs more than 1,000 people nationwide and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For wind-farm construction, New York State requires the prevailing wage to be paid, which means construction workers earn the union rate and benefits. Together, Orsted and Equinor estimate they will create about 2,000 construction jobs and more than 550 permanent jobs among the five wind farms.
Haugland Group is a Tier I or prime contractor for South Fork Wind, which means it relies on subcontractors to supply some of the goods and services needed to complete the project.
A&S Rebar in Yaphank produced the steel bars or rebar that Haugland Group used to strengthen concrete in the Wainscott trench where the electrical cable was laid. The rebar was installed by A&S’ sister company, Yonkers-based Lashay’s Construction & Development Co.
Andrew Simmons, founder and president of both companies, said, “Billy [Haugland II] introduced me to the offshore wind industry and I see a lot of potential. We started out small but there’s billions [of dollars of work] between New York and New Jersey.”
Simmons, anticipating more orders, spent $300,000 recently to add equipment on the 1.5-acre lot that A&S rents in the Brookhaven Rail Terminal, a freight facility. A&S has supplied large building projects in the metropolitan area, such as the Long Island Expressway repaving and the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access.
Five employees take the 60-foot steel bars from steel mills and use machines to cut the bars to the desired lengths and bend them into shapes. The workers turned out about 5,000 tons of rebar last year, which generated sales of between $4 million and $5 million, Simmons said.
“I want to get sales up to $20 million in the next few years, and offshore wind can help with that,” he said. “I’m focused on offshore wind because there’s a lot of work coming down.”
Simmons’ enthusiasm for wind farms is by no means universal among Long Island manufacturers, according to the projects' advocates.
“It’s stunning to me how many people have no clue what these offshore wind projects are all about, or the potential for Long Island companies to make spare parts, for Long Islanders to get jobs operating and maintaining these wind farms,” said Phil Rugile, who has spent years guiding technology startups and workforce development programs. “There’s very little real excitement and a lot of skepticism.”
Two years ago, Rugile started the OSW Supply Chain website and newsletter to inform manufacturers and others about an industry that he predicts will be as important to the Long Island economy as space exploration with Grumman Corp.’s Lunar Module was in the 1960s and 1970s.
“Offshore wind is the biggest thing to come along in 30 to 40 years and it will need a domestic supply chain, which Long Island’s aerospace and defense manufacturers are well positioned to be part of,” he said.
Orsted and Equinor representatives agreed, saying the cost of importing replacement parts from Europe is prohibitive and time-consuming.
“A worst-case scenario is buying parts from Denmark,” said Mike McMahon, senior supply-chain development manager for Denmark-based Orsted. “The replacement parts, the support services have to be local.”
Amanda Schoen, industry relations director in the United States for Norway-based Equinor, added that European manufacturers are already flush with orders as additional wind farms are planned for Europe and Asia. “It’s not true that we will source everything in Europe,” she said.
An Equinor contractor hired Miller Marine Services in Port Jefferson to provide the vessel that scientists and engineers used last fall to chart a cable pathway in the Sound for the Beacon Wind I project.
Citing Miller Marine’s decades of experience in local waters, Schoen said, “Why pay for a vessel from elsewhere? It definitely makes sense to go local.”
Company president Jimmy Miller said he began exploring opportunities in offshore wind about a dozen years ago after the number of oil tankers traversing Long Island Sound fell off. He transports crew, pilots, inspectors, food and water from the shore to the tankers and back.
Miller said he bought a 145-foot vessel specifically to serve the offshore wind farms and installed a hydraulic lift and other equipment. The boat, named "Danielle Miller" for the wife of his eldest son, has been used to examine the seabed for locations to place wind-farm foundations and electrical cable.
Besides Beacon Wind I, Miller Marine has worked on the Block Island wind farm and Skipjack Wind, an Orsted project off the Maryland/Delaware coast. Miller Marine has between 10 and 25 employees, depending on the amount of work.
“It’s very exciting, but it’s also very scary,” Miller said, of pursuing contracts in offshore wind. “We’re competing against foreign-flagged vessels and large companies that service the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico.”
He said that New York State’s requirement that offshore wind developers work with companies in the state "helps us tremendously. It gives us a fighting chance.”
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
That's how business owners on Long Island described winning a share of the nearly $4 billion in offshore wind-farm contracts set aside for New York State firms.
Local companies are supplying concrete, rebar and ocean-floor coverings to protect the electrical cable that will connect one wind farm's turbines to a substation in East Hampton. Others are building an operations center in East Setauket and providing transportation for the scientists and engineers who are creating a cable pathway in Long Island Sound for another farm.
Five offshore wind farms are to be built off Montauk Point and Long Beach over the next few years. Four are required to award some of their contracts to businesses in the state, under agreements signed with a state authority.
“We’re talking about work being generated for another decade; it’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Thomas Montalbine, president of Roman Stone Construction Co. in Bay Shore.
Thomas Montalbine, president of Roman Stone, describes concrete mattresses at Roman Stone in Bay Shore. Credit: Tom Lambui
The manufacturer of precast concrete won its second contract last month to produce concrete "mattresses," or protective coverings, for South Fork Wind’s electrical cable. The wind farm is expected to start producing electricity late this year.
Roman Stone's mattresses are 9 feet by 20 feet and weigh 22,000 pounds each. They are deployed to hold the electrical cable on the seabed in places where it cannot be buried because other cables such as telecommunications lines are already there. Those cables are also protected by the mattresses.
Concrete mattresses are loaded onto a flatbed tractor-trailer at Roman Stone in Bay Shore. Credit: Tom Lambui
The two contracts won by Roman Stone, together totaling about $500,000, represent a small percentage of the company's annual sales of between $15 million and $16 million. But if additional orders come in, Montalbine said, he may need to add a couple of people to his unionized production staff of 50.
Roman Stone, founded in 1903, gained entry to the offshore wind industry by establishing a partnership with Subsea Protection Systems Ltd., a British company that sells concrete mattresses to wind farms around the globe. Subsea agreed to provide its design and engineering expertise to Roman Stone in return for a percentage of the contracts’ value.
Hands across the water
“Offshore wind is over 30 years old in Europe and there are companies with a lot of experience in supplying the industry,” Montalbine said. “You have to find the right contact in Europe and establish a relationship with them to be their partner in the United States.”
He continued, “It took me awhile to figure that out. I was talking to the wrong people and got nowhere” for months.
One of the individuals who helped Montalbine find his way is Marjaneh Issapour, an engineering professor at Farmingdale State College who recently opened National Wind Services Corp., a consulting firm in Woodbury.
Every business has a niche and shouldn’t reshape itself for offshore wind. Stick to what’s your expertise and see if there is a role that you can play.
-Marjaneh Issapour, an engineering professor at Farmingdale State College
“Every business has a niche and shouldn’t reshape itself for offshore wind,” she said. “Stick to what’s your expertise and see if there is a role that you can play.”
Issapour and others said business owners in Nassau and Suffolk counties shouldn’t be discouraged that the major components of wind farms -- blades, turbines, towers and foundations -- will be assembled in New York City and upstate from imported parts.
“So, you cannot build the turbine but maybe you can supply the grease that it takes to maintain the turbine,” Issapour said. “There are opportunities for local businesses because New York State is requiring the [offshore wind farm] developers and their major contractors to have local content, even if it costs them a little bit more.”
The developers have signed contracts stipulating that they spend nearly $4 billion, among four of the wind farms, with businesses in the state. No such requirement exists for South Fork Wind but the developer expects to spend $100 million with companies in the state, officials said.
For four of the offshore wind farms, their in-state expenditures must be made during the construction phase through the third year of operation, according to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which regulates the industry.
The state will provide incentive payments to support the construction and operation of the wind farms. The payments will result in an average increase of less than $2 per month on residential electric bills, NYSERDA projections show.
Key developers
The developers are Orsted, the Danish company that operates the first offshore wind farm in the United States near Block Island in Rhode Island, and Equinor of Norway.
Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, is partnering with Eversource, a New England-based utility company, on two projects east of Montauk Point: South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind.
A barge conducting horizontal drilling for the sea-to-land cable for the South Fork Wind Farm cable off the coast of Wainscott.
Credit: Bloomberg/Johnny Milano
Equinor, in partnership with bp, formerly the British Petroleum Co., is building two projects south of Long Beach: Empire Wind I and Empire Wind II. The partnership’s third project is Beacon Wind I, 60 miles east of Montauk and 20 miles south of Nantucket.
Equinor and Orsted are among the developers that submitted proposals to the state last month for additional wind farms to be located south and east of Long Island. NYSERDA is expected to announce the winning proposals this spring.
Among the five wind farms that have been approved, South Fork Wind is the smallest, with 12 turbines, and the furthest along in construction. The electricity will be purchased by the Long Island Power Authority.
Five offshore wind farms have been approved so far and their developers have committed to spending nearly $4 billion with New York State businesses. Credit: NEWSDAY GRAPHIC / GUSTAVO PABÓN
Much of South Fork Wind's onshore construction is being performed by Haugland Group LLC.
The Melville-based firm is building a 100,000-square-foot substation in East Hampton and last fall dug a four-mile trench and installed a conduit system for the electrical cable in Wainscott, from the water’s edge to the substation.
“We’re going to pursue every contract because something like offshore wind only happens once in a lifetime,” said CEO Billy Haugland II, adding that his company worked on the Block Island Wind Farm in 2016 and 2021.
He said the South Fork Wind contracts represent about 10% of Haugland Group’s annual sales of more than $500 million. But the other wind farms are larger – and so will bring larger contracts and more jobs.
Haugland Group has already won a contract to help with the installation of the electrical cable for Sunrise Wind. The company employs more than 1,000 people nationwide and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
For wind-farm construction, New York State requires the prevailing wage to be paid, which means construction workers earn the union rate and benefits. Together, Orsted and Equinor estimate they will create about 2,000 construction jobs and more than 550 permanent jobs among the five wind farms.
Haugland Group is a Tier I or prime contractor for South Fork Wind, which means it relies on subcontractors to supply some of the goods and services needed to complete the project.
A&S Rebar in Yaphank produced the steel bars or rebar that Haugland Group used to strengthen concrete in the Wainscott trench where the electrical cable was laid. The rebar was installed by A&S’ sister company, Yonkers-based Lashay’s Construction & Development Co.
Andrew Simmons, founder of A&S Rebar, at the company's manufacturing plant in Yaphank. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
Andrew Simmons, founder and president of both companies, said, “Billy [Haugland II] introduced me to the offshore wind industry and I see a lot of potential. We started out small but there’s billions [of dollars of work] between New York and New Jersey.”
Simmons, anticipating more orders, spent $300,000 recently to add equipment on the 1.5-acre lot that A&S rents in the Brookhaven Rail Terminal, a freight facility. A&S has supplied large building projects in the metropolitan area, such as the Long Island Expressway repaving and the Long Island Rail Road’s East Side Access.
Rebar by the ton
Five employees take the 60-foot steel bars from steel mills and use machines to cut the bars to the desired lengths and bend them into shapes. The workers turned out about 5,000 tons of rebar last year, which generated sales of between $4 million and $5 million, Simmons said.
“I want to get sales up to $20 million in the next few years, and offshore wind can help with that,” he said. “I’m focused on offshore wind because there’s a lot of work coming down.”
Simmons’ enthusiasm for wind farms is by no means universal among Long Island manufacturers, according to the projects' advocates.
“It’s stunning to me how many people have no clue what these offshore wind projects are all about, or the potential for Long Island companies to make spare parts, for Long Islanders to get jobs operating and maintaining these wind farms,” said Phil Rugile, who has spent years guiding technology startups and workforce development programs. “There’s very little real excitement and a lot of skepticism.”
Two years ago, Rugile started the OSW Supply Chain website and newsletter to inform manufacturers and others about an industry that he predicts will be as important to the Long Island economy as space exploration with Grumman Corp.’s Lunar Module was in the 1960s and 1970s.
Offshore wind is the biggest thing to come along in 30 to 40 years and it will need a domestic supply chain, which Long Island’s aerospace and defense manufacturers are well positioned to be part of.
-Phil Rugile, who guides technology startups and workforce development programs
“Offshore wind is the biggest thing to come along in 30 to 40 years and it will need a domestic supply chain, which Long Island’s aerospace and defense manufacturers are well positioned to be part of,” he said.
Orsted and Equinor representatives agreed, saying the cost of importing replacement parts from Europe is prohibitive and time-consuming.
Locally sourced means cheaper
“A worst-case scenario is buying parts from Denmark,” said Mike McMahon, senior supply-chain development manager for Denmark-based Orsted. “The replacement parts, the support services have to be local.”
Amanda Schoen, industry relations director in the United States for Norway-based Equinor, added that European manufacturers are already flush with orders as additional wind farms are planned for Europe and Asia. “It’s not true that we will source everything in Europe,” she said.
An Equinor contractor hired Miller Marine Services in Port Jefferson to provide the vessel that scientists and engineers used last fall to chart a cable pathway in the Sound for the Beacon Wind I project.
James Miller, president of Miller Marine Services, near his company's 145-foot wind-farm work vessel, the Danielle Miller, docked in Port Jefferson Harbor. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Citing Miller Marine’s decades of experience in local waters, Schoen said, “Why pay for a vessel from elsewhere? It definitely makes sense to go local.”
Company president Jimmy Miller said he began exploring opportunities in offshore wind about a dozen years ago after the number of oil tankers traversing Long Island Sound fell off. He transports crew, pilots, inspectors, food and water from the shore to the tankers and back.
Miller said he bought a 145-foot vessel specifically to serve the offshore wind farms and installed a hydraulic lift and other equipment. The boat, named "Danielle Miller" for the wife of his eldest son, has been used to examine the seabed for locations to place wind-farm foundations and electrical cable.
Besides Beacon Wind I, Miller Marine has worked on the Block Island wind farm and Skipjack Wind, an Orsted project off the Maryland/Delaware coast. Miller Marine has between 10 and 25 employees, depending on the amount of work.
“It’s very exciting, but it’s also very scary,” Miller said, of pursuing contracts in offshore wind. “We’re competing against foreign-flagged vessels and large companies that service the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico.”
He said that New York State’s requirement that offshore wind developers work with companies in the state "helps us tremendously. It gives us a fighting chance.”
Resources for contractors
Navigating the process for winning a contract to supply the offshore wind industry isn’t easy. Experts advised business owners to take these steps:
- Sign up for the state-run database of suppliers: bit.ly/3YAkUb1
- Attend supplier events. Equinor is planning an event on March 10 at Farmingdale State College: bit.ly/3xsMuLE. Orsted will have an event on April 25 at the Brentwood campus of Suffolk County Community College: bit.ly/3EaeaII
- Keep up with industry news at bit.ly/3YU51w0. There's also a supplier page on each wind farm's website.
— Compiled by James T. Madore
James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.
