The Block Island Wind Farm probably could not have happened in another state at that time.  Rhode Island offers some terrific advantages among the many states that support offshore wind and there are certain advantages to being small and nimble.  Rhode Island has a high-octane team, from Governor Gina Raimondo to Secretary of Commerce Stefan Pryor to Acting Energy Commissioner Nick Ucci and so many others.  This kind of development doesn’t happen by accident. This is something that people work hard to make happen. 

As a result of the entrepreneurial spirit of folks in many different areas – energy policy development, permitting, solicitation, etc. -- the state stepped forward and, in a very nuanced way, allowed Deepwater Wind to come in with a proposal for a commercially-financed offshore wind project and to move it forward successfully.  In the process, Rhode Island got many aspects of the permitting process right. 

That process showed how to handle the permitting of an offshore wind farm effectively.  It allowed for input from the many stakeholders to be heard and used in meaningful ways wherever it was appropriate.  Ultimately, it resulted in a situation where the project was financeable, as opposed to many other projects at that time.  This was a result of the partnership and the close working relationship Deepwater Wind had with the state government and various agencies.  The financial markets became far more confident that offshore wind could really happen in the United States after so many starts and failures. 

The net reality about the Block Island Wind Farm was that it became a very important first piece of a multi-piece process that enabled the policy development in other states that was happening during that same period to also move forward.  Policy makers were watching this closely and there was a good deal of justified skepticism at that time.  But the fact that the wind farm was successfully permitted and was finally constructed helped policy makers in other states enormously.  They had heard about offshore wind as a theory that had never been successfully developed and saw it turned into something that was far more concrete. 

Ørsted has created a strong partnership with Eversource and we are proud to work with New England’s premier transmission provider.  Eversource has unparalleled experience in onshore transmission in the New England grid.  As Ørsted is planting the seeds and growing roots with this tremendous ramp up in the US in terms of offshore wind, having a partner that’s been here for 100 years like Eversource makes this new complex energy infrastructure industry much easier for us.  They have the know-how and understand of the US that brings great value to the partnership. 

Something like the Innovation Hub typically doesn’t get a lot of attention.  It just doesn’t have the same kind of ring of other more high-profile opportunities that we have, but we consider it a huge part of our plans for offshore wind in the United States. 

The Innovation Hub is an example of the savvy partnership between Ørsted and the State of Rhode Island, specifically the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (RICC) and the Governor’s office.  They were keen that Rhode Island gets its fair share of offshore wind investment and attention.  With attention comes more notice, and with more notice comes more momentum, and with more momentum you can build an ecosystem around it.  The Governor’s and Secretary of Commerce Stefan Pryor’s teams have made it very clear that they are interested in opportunities from the white collar to the blue collar and everything in between. 

With a maritime innovation economy as rich as it is here in Rhode Island, the notion of establishing our first ever Innovation Hub outside of Denmark was ultimately a no-brainer.  The way the team at the RICC rolled it out for us was fantastic.  I will tell you that the way the RICC team pulled together all of these otherwise seemingly disparate aspects of the state’s economy so that we could get a very clear view and establish the right relationships made the difference. 

The Innovation Hub is at its core a function that seeks to identify companies in the United States that essentially wish to partner with us.  We can help them mature their technology to create more efficient systems and procedures, as well as better standardization, health and safety, and monitoring of our projects.  It’s the full panoply of opportunities to innovate offshore wind.  The search will start in Rhode Island for different types of innovations and will go forward throughout the United States.  It will be an active function centered in Rhode Island at the CIC Building and drawing resources from our co-headquarters in Providence, our Boston offices and our other offices around the world. 

We see the Innovation Hub as a kind of front door for companies that are interested in contacting Ørsted who are not already in the supply chain.  If you’re a company and you don’t know where to go, we’re hoping that the front door that will emerge will be the Innovation Hub.  From there it will build a collective understanding of what type of value proposition it has.  Or it may be triaged out to other aspects of Ørsted where perhaps it is more appropriately placed.  But we are very serious about pushing as much opportunity as we can into Rhode Island or into any other market that we do business in.