Engineering company Offshore Wind Consultants (OWC) is opening its first US office in Boston, Massachusetts.
According to OWC business development director John MacAskill (pictured) the east coast city is increasingly becoming the centre for offshore wind developments in the US.
He said: “Our clients are increasingly expecting a permanent presence from us, which allows us the opportunity to expand into Boston.
“The US offshore wind market is now taking off. In the past year OWC has undertaken a number of US assignments and we are receiving an increasing number of service requests from the US.”
OWC has recruited Adrienne Fink to lead the Boston-based team.
Fink has worked as an environmental and regulatory consultant with over 20 years of experience in US energy-related onshore, coastal, and marine infrastructure markets and was also involved in the development of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s interim Rule Guidance.
OWC has been involved in several US offshore wind projects to date, through the office of its sister company Aqualis Offshore, in Houston, Texas, which provided geotechnical site investigation supervision services at Orsted’s Ocean Wind offshore wind project.
MacAskill said: “We aim to support projects at both early stage and as they work through to realisation, mixing our global wind experience with local knowledge and expertise. We will also continue to capitalise on Aqualis Offshore US offshore sector competence.”
OWC is part of Oslo-listed Aqualis, an energy consulting group providing consultancy services to the offshore renewables, oil and gas as well as the maritime and shipping industries.