Name: Nick Zenkin

Your Technical Discipline: Renewables/Offshore Wind

Years in industry: 4

Years at Xodus: >1

You haven’t been at Xodus long, what attracted you to join?

Xodus seemed like (and is!) a company full of great people. Having awesome colleagues that have expertise in a wide range of expertise makes it very easy to stay curious and motivated to complete challenging work. Xodus also seems to aim to address innovative and state-of-the-art problems, which is particularly cool!

What advice would you give anyone looking to join the offshore wind industry?

I would say don’t worry about specific roles for your first job, and just do anything that gets your foot in the door. Since the US offshore wind industry is so new, there is so much potential for getting involved in a variety of different ways. Once you are working in the sector, in any capacity, you will stand out from the crowd as very few US citizens have offshore wind experience. This advantage will make transferring roles to the one that you enjoy the most much easier.

What is the biggest challenge the industry is facing?

The biggest challenge the offshore wind industry is facing is the lack of installation vessels. Limited supply, overlapping project timelines, and Jones Act restrictions (in the US) are leading to potential future installation bottlenecks.

What are the biggest risks that OW Developers face right now in the US?

Outside vessel constraints (see above), port constraints are another major issue for the US offshore wind market. Offshore wind requires large ports with a lot of contingent variables (marshalling space, height restrictions, water depth, etc.) and there are very few US ports that are currently capable of supporting the scale of offshore wind projects that are planned. This limited supply of ports may lead to bottlenecks as ports are competitively contracted out.