Port of Long Beach plans wind turbine assembly terminal
The Port of Long Beach plans to build a new terminal on up to 400 acres which when completed would be the largest wind turbine assembly floating system at a U.S. seaport.
Conceptual assessment for the project, Pier Wind, is expected to complete next year, said Mario Cordero, executive director of the port, in an address Jan. 26. The facility would aid in the state’s goal of producing 25 GW in offshore wind capacity. Turbine assemblies taller than the Eiffel Tower would be towed to wind farms in central and northern California.
This follows anannouncement in December of the first-ever offshore wind lease sale off the U.S. West Coast, which will support California’s plan to transition to 90% clean energy by 2035 as well as the federal government’s bid to reduce the cost of floating wind energy by 70%.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had completed an auction for five lease areas in Humboldt Bay and Morro Bay, off the northern and central coasts of California. The lease is the first U.S. lease sale supporting commercial floating offshore wind development.
In his annual state of the port address, Cordero also announced a new “ZEERO” policy—Zero Emissions, Energy Resilient Operations Program—that would focus on developing renewable energy sources.
Along with establishing dockside electricity hookups for ships, starting construction on a fourth rail track at Ocean Boulevard, and completing the Pier G-J Double Track Project, the port plans to begin in 2024 a $1.5-billion Pier B on-dock rail support facility project. It will spend $90 million a year to convert all heavy trucks from using diesel while providing charging infrastructure. Thanks to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers go-ahead, the port will deepen the Long Beach Approach Channel from 76 ft to 80 ft, ease turning bends in the main channel to deepen a wider area to 76 ft, deepen parts of the West Basin from 50 ft to 55 ft, construct an approach channel and turning basin to Pier J South with a depth of 55 ft, improve the breakwaters at the entrance to Pier J, and deposit dredged material in nearshore sites for reuse or in federally approved ocean disposal sites.
Cordero noted that the Pier B project is expected to complete around the same time, 1030, as the $1.5-billion BNSF intermodal facility in Barstow, Calif.
The city of Long Beach has also negotiated a Project Labor Agreement with the Los Angeles/Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council through 2023, Cordero said. This extends on an original five-year PLA agreement in 2015.
Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s state budget included $2.3 billion to fund green port goals, including $110 million for a goods movement workforce training campus at the Port of Long Beach, which plans to invest more than $2.6 billion in infrastructure projects over the next decade.
