Albany, N.Y. is poised to become a global leader in offshore wind-turbine manufacturing now that Port of Albany has been named the future site of the first offshore win-turbine manufacturing hub in North America.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the initiative on its website Jan. 19. DOE Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm, along with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and other politicians to the port Jan. 14 to deliver remarks and tour the port, the DOE reports.
"Hats off to Governor Hochul for taking a huge step towards lowering energy bills for New York households," Granholm said in the statement, "creating thousands of good-paying jobs and advancing President Biden's goal of a robust offshore wind industry in America,"
The $500 million initiative is part of President Joseph R. Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda address climate change and transition the country to green energy sources, the DOE states. The Port of Albany project predicted to "help lower energy costs, generate good-paying, union jobs and secure a safer and more reliable energy grid for New Yorkers and Americans across the country", according to the DOE.
The Port of Albany project will also bring New York closer to its goal of achieving 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035, and a zero-emission electricity sector by 2040.
The wind-turbine manufacturing hub will create more than 5,200 jobs, from engineering and planning to construction and maintenance, the DOE reports. Gov. Hochul told WNYT NewsChannel 13 that $20 million of the $500 million in funding is earmarked for training workers.
The new manufacturing hub is expected to create over 5,200 jobs, with positions available in a wide variety of areas including engineering and planning, design to maintenance to construction. There will also be union jobs available that will both generate good-paying positions as well as creating a safer and more reliable energy grid with lower energy costs.
“This big facility that will be built [will] require construction workers and tradespeople," Granholm said. "You can see the towers that will be built, which will require specialized manufacturing workers. You can see the longshoremen who will position and put them on the barges. Here we go, over a thousand jobs that will be here.”
The hub will serve as a blueprint for others like it, paving the way for other offshore wind manufacturing hubs across the country. The success of the clean-energy initiatives proposed by the Biden administration requires both investments in technologies like wind turbines and buy-in from the political right, which typically is not supportive of green energy.
Granholm said some red states are investing in clean energy because "they see it as an opportunity to create jobs."
“We can and will overcome the challenge of climate change, and we'll do it one clean energy worker at a time," Granholm said.
