MORGANTOWN — In 1907, Steel of West Virginia fired to life in Huntington and started rolling out light rails used by a booming coal industry to push West Virginia to the fore of America’s energy production.
They still make those light rails, but now, as Steel of West Virginia’s Kevin Linville summed it up on Thursday, “Now, we’re in the wind industry.”
The Huntington steel plant will contribute 1,600 tons of steel bulb flats, an internal structural component to be used in the construction of the Charybdis, the first U.S.-flagged offshore wind turbine installation vessel.
This announcement was included in a press conference at Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm arrived in Morgantown as part of a two-day tour aimed at promoting West Virginia as critical to a new, clean energy economy.
“We’re basically here for a purpose and the reason is basically to show the secretary what we have done for the last century and what we intend to do for the next century,” Manchin said, noting “West Virginia is open for business in the energy market.”
The hope is that the steel going into the 472-foot, $500 million Charybdis is just the beginning.
“It’s one example of such a large degree of products of energy or opportunity that lies in this clean energy future and that West Virginia can play an enormous part in,” Granholm said, touting President Biden’s push for clean energy, which includes a call for 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030.
“We’re all about jobs,” she said. “As the president said, when he hears the word “climate” he translates it into “jobs” That’s what we’re here to hear from West Virginians, about what we should be doing as a partner on the federal side to make sure that jobs are created here in clean energy. We want to grow the pie.”
The ship, which is under construction in Brownsville, Texas, is being built by Dominion Energy and has been chartered by Danish green energy company Orstead, along with partner Eversource, to install two of the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farms — Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind.
Those installations will provide more than 1.6 gigawatts of energy to nearly 1 million homes in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.
The vessel will also support construction of Dominion Energy’s 2.6 gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project off the cost of Virginia Beach.
Dominion Energy CEO Bob Blue said the company is a proud corporate citizen of West Virginia providing natural gas to more than 100,000 homes and businesses in 35 counties in the state.
He said the company is also proud of its efforts to put Americans to work on clean energy projects, explaining that the construction of the Charybdis will produce 1,000 jobs by the time the vessel is seaworthy, in 2023.
“We want offshore wind in America to be built with American parts and American labor, and that begins with the Charybdis,” he said.
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