New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has unveiled new plans to invest in the training of US offshore wind workers.
The state is to launch a new training institute on Long Island at Suny Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook University, Cuomo said in his State of the State address.
The pair will seek a third partner for the $20m facility to train up to 2500 workers.
Cuomo also pledged a near doubling of the investment over the next five years to train 40,000 clean energy workers.
Some $60m has already been promised but this has now been upped to $100m and will be spent on workforce development, including in the offshore sector.
The Governor meanwhile confirmed that NYSERDA will issues its second offshore wind solicitation for “at least” 1GW of capacity this year.
“NYSERDA, DOT and ESD will also initiate a competitive process to award $200 million in public investments in port infrastructure improvements,” he added.
The industry welcomed the announcements.
“We thank the governor and our friends at NYSERDA for expanding these workforce programs, which continues the momentum from last year’s call for 9000MW of offshore wind by 2035 and the ports infrastructure program,” said Liz Burdock, chief executive of the Business Network for Offshore Wind.
“It will take a partnership of industry, labor and academics to provide training opportunities for the many occupations involved in the complex and diverse offshore wind industry, and this is a great start.”