The Jones Act kills offshore windfarming, work-arounds aren’t enough and ship construction is minimal and takes too long

The Jones Act, passed by Congress in 1920, says that only U.S.-flagged ships can move cargo from one point in the United States to another. The ships must have been built in the U.S. and be crewed by Americans. The offshore wind industry uses big, specialized ships to assemble the turbines miles out at sea, but there is not a single U.S.-flagged ship right now that can do that work.

“If you bring a part, say you bring in a cell, which is where the generator is housed for an offshore wind turbine — those are only manufactured in other parts of the world right now, primarily in the EU or southeast Asia,” explained Katharine Kollins, with the Southeast Wind Coalition, which promotes wind energy.

“Normally you would place that on the U.S. coast. If you do that, you need a U.S.- flagged vessel to install that,” she said.

So companies that are doing the early offshore wind projects on the East Coast have had to come up with workarounds. Dominion Energy, based in Virginia, put up test turbines off the Virginia coast and had to ferry parts back and forth from Canada to avoid running afoul of the Jones Act.

Companies doing offshore wind farms can also use U.S.-flagged ships to ferry pieces out to the specialized assembly vessels.

Dominion is planning to build an offshore wind farm off the Virginia coast. There are also projects in the early stages off North Carolina’s Outer Banks and off the southeast tip of North Carolina.

Faced with not having a single U.S.-flagged ship that can install the turbines, in late 2020, Dominion announced it would have its own wind turbine installation vessel built at a shipyard in Brownsville, Texas. The price tag is estimated at about $500 million, the company said.

Dominion described the ship: “The vessel's hull has a length of 472 feet, a width of 184 feet and a depth of 38 feet, making it one of the biggest vessels of its kind in the world. It has accommodations for up to 119 people. The vessel is designed to handle current turbine technologies as well as next generation turbine sizes of 12 megawatt or larger and will also be capable of the installation of foundations for turbines and other heavy lifts.”

"This is a monumental step for the offshore wind industry in America," Dominion Energy president and CEO Robert Blue said in a statement at the time.

"Dominion Energy is proud to be leading a consortium of respected industry participants in the construction of the first Jones Act compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel, which will provide significant American jobs, and provide a reliable, home-grown installation solution with the capacity to handle the next generation of large-scale, highly-efficient turbine technologies. This will better enable the offshore wind industry to bring clean, renewable energy to customers in the U.S," Blue said.

These ships take years to build. Industry watchers say they have not heard of any other installation ships being built in the United States.