By GREGORY ZELLER //
State awards for the development of an offshore-wind workforce are beginning to circulate around Long Island.
The Offshore Wind Training Institute – an academic-government partnership focused on staffing the region’s promising future as a national clean-energy hub – has issued its first round of training-program grant awards, with $4 million flowing to statewide SUNY campuses.
Ten distinct programs across seven State University campuses earned stipends in the opening round, including offshore-wind training programs at Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook University – the academic institutions chosen by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to manage the OWTI.
Suffolk County Community College, the University at Buffalo, Alfred State College of Technology, Hudson Valley Community College in Troy and SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Utica also earned slices of the $4 million pie.
John Nader: Shaping the offshore landscape.
Responding to an October 2022 Request for Proposals, the competitive-grant winners “will expand workforce-development and training initiatives for jobs in constructing, manufacturing, installing, operating and maintaining offshore wind farms,” according to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office.
Round 1 applicants were required to hit metrics in one or more “priority focus areas”: expanding offshore-wind curricula, responding to rapid training needs and/or confronting barriers to industry entry. Proposals addressing equity, youth outreach, community awareness and industry partnerships earned special attention.
Congratulating the 10 programs awarded through Round 1, Hochul trumpeted statewide workforce-development efforts that are “helping us address the climate crisis and create a greener state for all.”
“Nation-leading programs like the Offshore Wind Training Institute are essential to ensuring that the state’s workforce is ready to support our ambitious renewable-energy goals,” the governor added. “SUNY, in partnership with NYSERDA, is equipping new and existing workers to participate in the green energy revolution here in New York for generations to come.”
With SBU and Farmingdale State providing hands-on technical support – and their own indigenous slates of wind-workforce programming – the OWTI is building a wide network of academic, industry, labor and community alliances, with an ultimate goal of preparing some 25,000 learners for careers in various renewable-energy fields.
A second round of competitive award-winners is scheduled be announced later this year, with another RFP on tap and NYSERDA selectors ready for another deep pile of excellent proposals, according to Farmingdale State College President and OWTI Director John Nader.
“All of the outstanding proposals we received (in Round 1) demonstrate the caliber of SUNY faculty and our shared commitment to establishing offshore wind as an integral part of the energy and economic landscape on Long Island and throughout New York State,” Nader said in a statement. “I am grateful … to the many faculty across the SUNY system who are working on solutions to today’s important environmental and societal challenges.”
