Offshore wind technology center opens in Chesapeake

CHESAPEAKE

The next generation of offshore wind energy systems may be developed just minutes from Greenbrier Mall.

A team of about 50 engineers in a building off Volvo Parkway is working on two prototypes for wind turbines that would be the heart of offshore windmills that soon may sprout off the coast of Virginia.

Executives from Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding-Newport News and Gamesa Technology Corp., a U.S. subsidiary of a Spanish wind-energy company, were joined Thursday by Gov. Bob McDonnell,

Chesapeake Mayor Alan Krasnoff, and wind-industry officials to mark the opening of the Offshore Wind Technology Center.

"It really is a tremendous vision," McDonnell told a group of more than 100 gathered at Gamesa's new 25,000-square-foot facility in Liberty Executive Park. "This'll be the first prototype ever built in the United States for an offshore wind platform. It holds tremendous potential for jobs, for economic development, here in the future."

Gamesa, one of the world's leading manufacturers of wind turbines, had yet to enter the offshore-wind market, in part because of the obstacles posed by putting wind turbines in an ocean setting.

"In the wind-energy sector, offshore is the technological challenge today that everyone is trying to crack," said Jose Antonio Malumbres, Gamesa's chief technology officer.

The company saw working with Northrop's Newport News shipyard - the only builder of U.S. aircraft carriers and one of two builders of nuclear submarines - as a way of developing a reliable, sea-based wind turbine.

"Our partnership with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding will help us resolve all of the challenges related to a marine environment, bringing to the table the best solutions from 125 years of experience in the sea," Malumbres said.

The Chesapeake operation is Gamesa's first offshore research-and-development office worldwide, he added.

The development team, a mix of engineers from Northrop Grumman, Gamesa and additional hires, has been at work for a couple of months, designing two units planned for installation by the fourth quarter of 2012, said David Rosenberg, a Gamesa spokesman.

The project, which is still hiring, is expected to employ about 80 engineers by the end of the year, Northrop and Gamesa officials said.

Last fall, the companies announced a deal to work together on the U.S. launch of a prototype for an offshore wind turbine being developed by Gamesa.

Plans call for one of the two units under development in Chesapeake to be installed on land, the other offshore, though specific sites have not yet been identified.

Gamesa plans to bring its first offshore product to market in 2013, Malumbres said.

In 2005, the company set up two manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania to make blades and power-generating units for land-based wind turbines. It is expected to employ about 1,000 people in its North American work force by the end of this month.

The offshore wind turbine being developed in Chesapeake will generate 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 800 homes a year, Malumbres said.

Thursday's ribbon-cutting came three days after Obama administration officials announced in Norfolk that the federal government could begin leasing sites off the coasts of Virginia and three other states for wind energy development by the end of the year.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar also announced that the federal government would spend $50.5 million over the next five years to fund research and development to support offshore wind energy.

Robert McCabe, (757) 446-2327, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.co