Last week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced an agreement that will transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT) into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the country. This move will help establish New York as a leader in offshore wind and meet its climate goals of 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. 

The deal, which was formed in collaboration between the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), Equinor, its partner bp, and Sustainable South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SSBMT), will upgrade and build out the site as an operations and maintenance base. The terminal will become a power interconnection site for the Empire Wind 1 project, an initiative that will create an offshore wind farm across an 80,000-acre stretch of water 20 miles south of Long Island. Heavy lift platforms will be built on the 39th Street Pier for wind turbine staging and installation for Equinor and other developers. The port will also serve as a hub for the Equinor and bp-led 128,000-acre Beacon Wind offshore wind farm located 20 miles south of Nantucket. 

In addition, NYCEDC has partnered with Equinor and the community to support workforce training for a diverse pool of local residents in order to bolster opportunities for New Yorkers created by the investments in offshore wind infrastructure. The agreement aims to reach a 30 percent participation goal for minority- and women-owned business enterprise (M/WBE) contractors based in and registered with New York City or New York State. The agreement also ensures that the development will be a low-emissions facility.

“With this investment, the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal will soon be transformed into one of the largest offshore wind port facilities in the nation,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “This site will be the launch of a whole new industry for New York City that will support 13,000 local jobs over time, generate $1.3 billion in average annual investment citywide, and significantly reduce our carbon footprint so that we can meet our climate goals of 100 percent clean electricity by 2040. This is a transformative moment for New York City and our clean energy future — a future of sustainable power, good-paying jobs, and climate justice.”

The SBMT transformation is part of New York City’s Offshore Wind Vision Plan, a 15-year initiative announced in fall 2021 that will see a $191 million investment head towards the development of offshore wind farm infrastructure as part of the wider goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. $57 million of the fund will support the SBMY with the rest going towards new investments. The city expects these initiatives to remove more than 34 million tons of carbon dioxide from the environment while creating 13,000 jobs related to offshore wind infrastructure. There are currently five offshore wind projects in active development, which are expected to power more than 2.4 million homes across New York and bring $12.1 billion to the state.