MarWin Offshore Wind Farm

MarWin is a proposed offshore wind facility that will be located in a federal lease area off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland in the US. It is being developed by offshore wind energy development firm US Wind.

The wind farm is part of Maryland Offshore Wind Project, which seeks to develop a capacity of up to 2GW within OCS-A 0490 lease area off the coast of Maryland on the Outer Continental Shelf.

MarWin is expected to have a power-generating capacity of approximately 300MW.

Expected to start operations in December 2025, the wind facility will power more than 80,000 homes in Maryland annually.

The project will also support more than 1,300 local jobs and revitalise Maryland’s industrial waterfront.

US Wind is also expected to invest more than $75m in the ports of Maryland as part of the project.

Project and lease background

In November 2010, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) in the US and the Maryland Energy Administration sought a request for interest for renewable energy development in an offshore area selected by the Maryland Renewable Energy Task Force.

The Wind Energy Area in Maryland was designated in February 2011 by a task force and BOEM issued a Call for Information and Nominations in February 2012 to begin the leasing process.

In 2014, US Wind secured two leases (OCS-A 0489 and OCS-A 0490) from the BOEM for around $8.7m. The two commercial leases were merged into a single lease (OCS-A 0490) in 2018.

Overall, the lease includes an area of 79,707 acres. The western edge of the area is located around 16.2km (10.1 miles) to the closest point on the Maryland coastline.

The MarWin wind farm, as part of the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, received US Wind Offshore Renewable Energy Credits (ORECs) in 2017.

Momentum Wind, another proposed facility that will generate approximately 808MW of power, was awarded additional ORECs in 2021.

The project is subject to an array of approvals from federal, state, and local levels, as well as other permissions.

Project details

MarWin Offshore Wind Farm will be located around 20 miles from the Maryland coast.

It will consist of up to 22 wind turbine generators (WTGs) in the southeastern portion of the lease area.

According to Construction and Operations Plan, the Maryland Offshore Wind Project will include 121 WTGs, up to four offshore substations (OSS), and one meteorological tower (Met Tower).

The project will transport renewable energy via four new 230kV export cables to an existing substation in Delaware and thereby to the electric grid.

Each three-bladed WTG will have a capacity of up to 18MW. The WTGs will have a height of 286m to the tip, while their rotors will have a diameter of 250m.

US Wind is considering selecting the GE Haliade X -14.7 wind turbine for the project.

WTGs will be placed onto monopile foundations which will lie at a water depth of approximately 14m to 41m. The maximum mass of the monopile will be 2,200tn at maximum depth.

The project plans to have four offshore substations, each for a grouping of approximately 300 to 400MW of WTG capacity. These substations will be deployed atop monopile foundations, similar to the ones for a WTG.

Each substation is expected to include medium voltage switchgear (66Kv), HV transformer (66Kv to 230Kv), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) interface, generator, control systems, connection to export cables, and associated safety equipment. The backup generator will power the substation in times of emergencies.

The Met Tower, expected to be located at the western edge of the southernmost row of the array, will collect data to support operations and long-term monitoring.

The project will have offshore and onshore export cables as well as inter-array cables.

Up to 245km of inter-array cables will be used to connect the turbines with offshore substations. According to the plan, the cables will connect up to 4-6 WTGs in a string.

Up to four offshore export cables will connect offshore substations to the landfall area at 3R’s Beach or Tower Road (Barrier Beach Landfalls). Thereafter, up to four onshore export cables will run from the transition vaults via a cable corridor to the point of interconnection (POI).

US Wind plans to connect the project to the electrical grid by building substations and expanding an existing Delmarva Power and Light (DPL) 230kV substation at the POI.

Two additional substations will be built adjacent to the existing DPL substation at the POI.

The operations and maintenance facility will include an onshore warehouse, office and building spaces up to 15,000ft², crew transfer vessel (CTV) quayside and berthing areas in Ocean City, Maryland.

It will also include a marine coordination centre, crew support and comfort areas. The facility will cover an area of up to three acres near the Ocean City harbour.

Contractors and Agreements

K2 Management secured Owner’s Engineer role for the MarWin project in February 2021. The scope of work includes project management during the development phase, design and engineering and package management services.

TDI-Brooks International deployed two oceanographic research vessels, namely R/V Brooks McCall and R/V Miss Emma McCall, for seabed geophysical surveys in support of the MarWin wind farm.

Oceaneering International also won a contract in 2017 for conducting high-resolution marine geophysical surveys for Maryland Offshore Wind Project.

Wood Thilsted received the contract for the full detailed design scope for the wind farm along with site investigation support.

Bureau Veritas was approved as a Certified Verification Agent (CVA) for the MarWin project.

In August 2021, US Wind entered into a new port facility agreement with Tradepoint Atlantic to develop 90 waterfront acres into a new offshore wind deployment hub. US Wind plans to invest $77m in the hub through the MarWin project.