By GREGORY ZELLER //
As Long Island’s wind-energy industry flourishes, the safety of the men and women working on offshore rigs is paramount – and the National Offshore Wind Training Center is making sure it’s as secure as can be.
The Brentwood-based center and program partner Ørsted A/S, the Danish energy producer developing multiple offshore-wind projects in Long Island waters, have completed safety-training protocols for the NOWTC’s first class of graduates, totaling more than 160 New York-based workers.
Funded by a $10 million stipend from Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind project, the comprehensive instruction included health assessments, Helicopter Underwater Escape Training and Global Wind Organization Basic Safety Training, efforts designed to prepare the unionized workers to pursue careers in the burgeoning offshore-wind industry – including gigs building out critical offshore infrastructure, which can be lucrative work but presents certain dangers.
Allison Ziogas, Ørsted’s U.S. labor relations manager, applauded the NOWTC offerings, noting the “safety of our team members is always our top priority.”
Matthew Aracich: Leading the way.
“We’re proud that our investment in the National Offshore Wind Training Center has already offered 160 New Yorkers the opportunity to smoothly transition to work in offshore-wind energy, as this new American energy industry scales up,” Ziogas said Wednesday.
Considered the gold standard in offshore-wind safety instruction, the Denmark-based Global Wind Organization’s Basic Safety Training program features an intensive curriculum covering first aid, fire awareness, sea survival and protocols for working at heights, among other wellness-based instruction.
Helicopter Underwater Escape (or Egress) Training includes classroom lectures and in-water, hands-on training for helicopter flight crews, offshore workers (in the wind, oil and gas industries), law enforcement personnel, military members and others regularly transported over water by helicopter.
Such safety precautions are right in the wheelhouse for the NOWTC, a collaboration of the Long Island Federation of Labor, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties and Suffolk County Community College.
Operated by Denmark-based instructor Maersk Training, the center was originally staked by Ørsted and Connecticut-based Eversource Energy, the partners behind the Sunrise Wind project, a 924-megawatt offshore farm under construction about 30 miles east of Montauk Point.
Sunrise Wind is actually Ørsted’s second New York-based offshore project. Its first – South Fork Wind, a 130-megawatt field of 12 wind turbines also situated off Montauk Point, about 35 miles from shore – commenced operations earlier this year.
With Empire Wind – an 816-megawatt collaboration of Norwegian energy provider Equinor and British multinational BP – rising about 15 miles south of Jones Beach and various land-based receiving stations, transfer terminals and related infrastructure under construction across Long Island (or already pumping away), there’s certainly a lot of offshore energy-related activity in play.
That puts a double premium on offshore-wind safety training, according to Matthew Aracich, who doubles as president of the NOWTC and president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
In the swing: How not to fall from dangerous heights is just one of the safety protocols included in the NOWTC curriculum.
“As our state continues to lead on offshore wind, it’s critical that we have a pool of talented New Yorkers trained and ready for the new, local, good-paying jobs offshore-wind projects are creating,” Aracich said. “The workers coming out of NOWTC’s program will have the opportunity to be leaders of this exciting new industry.”
In a statement, Long Island Federation of Labor President John Durso noted that “no one is better equipped to succeed” as the backbone of the burgeoning regional and national wind-energy industries than his union’s members and its affiliates.
He also agreed that sometimes-perilous offshore-wind construction efforts “require rigorous training.”
“The union movement on Long Island is committed to New York’s offshore-wind industry,” Durso added. “[The National Offshore Wind Training Center] delivers the certifications necessary for our local workforce to help the industry continue to scale up.”
