While the Biden administration has touted its landmark clean-energy subsidy program to kick-start projects, developers must ensure a large chunk of components are U.S. made to take full advantage of the incentives, and that’s proving hard to achieve. “We are still upholding a real option to walk away,” Orsted Chief Executive Officer Mads Nipper said in an interview in London. “But right now, we are still working toward a final investment decision” on projects in America. It’s a tough time for offshore wind globally, with costs for steel and other materials spiraling higher just as countries push to add more turbines. Biden administration officials working to implement the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax provisions have emphasized that the domestic content bonus is an added incentive meant to help spur new clean-energy supply chains inside the U.S.

https://www.theday.com/nation/20230905/orsted-ready-to-abandon-u-s-wind-projects-as-it-asks-for-help/

Since 2022, OSHA reported eight workplace fatalities in Connecticut, one this year, seven in 2022. They include including workers being crushed, pinned, falling on their heads and being buried in a collapsed trench. There were 10 workplace deaths in 2021 and seven in 2020, OSHA reports. According to a labor law expert at Eastern Connecticut State University, more could be done to keep workers safe. Any workplace injury must be reported to OSHA, but not all require an investigation. The most common of those are slips and falls, meaning companies should focus on basics such as good snow-removal plans, she said. Sometimes, however, an accident at work may be the fault of the employee or something unavoidable that occurs.

These are the eight people who died on the job in CT since 2022. What happened and what OSHA found.

Bonanno and Pattavina were part of a group of high school rowers and other Middletown residents who packed a meeting of the Finance and Operations Committee on Wednesday to advocate for the Common Council to place a resolution on the ballot in November asking voters to approve $13.5 million in bonding to build a new boathouse. Gerry Daley, chair of the Boathouse Building Committee, said at the meeting that the project came out of a report from the Riverfront Redevelopment Commission in 2014. The current design includes a 12,000 square foot building with new bays to store the high school boats and a special area to repair boats on the first floor. The second floor includes a multi-purpose space that can be used for workouts and expanded locker rooms and bathrooms. The bond also includes renovations to the current boathouse, which will be used for the adult community rowing program, Central Connecticut Rowing.

Supporters Pack Meeting to Press for $13.5 Million Boathouse in Middletown

State Department of Transportation project engineer Andrew Millovitsch estimated most drivers were going 75 or 80 miles per hour through a dangerous expanse of Interstate 95 between exits 74 and 75 before construction began this spring on a four-and-a-half year project to make the roadway safer and less congested. Now, he said speeds have dropped “significantly.” The local rollout of the DOT’s Know The Zone pilot program on June 5 brought SUVs equipped with cameras to snap pictures of vehicles going more than 15 mph over the limit. The first violation comes with a warning directed to the registered owner of the vehicle, while the second comes with a $75 ticket. Subsequent violations cost $150 each.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230901/speed-cameras-doing-their-job-on-i-95-in-east-lyme/

Construction to extend the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail north from Lazy Lane to Aircraft Road is underway after years of planning and delays. The project, the third and final phase needed to complete most of the town’s segment of the popular linear trail, is scheduled for completion in 2024. State and local officials cited the pandemic as the cause of delays in designs and approvals needed for the trail segment, which crosses wetlands at several different points, requiring both local approval and permission from the Army Corps of Engineers. Southington engineers worked with the state Department of Transportation on the trail’s design.

https://www.myrecordjournal.com/News/Southington/Southington-News/Work-continues-on-the-extension-of-the-linear-trail-north-of-Lazy-Lane-in-Southington.html

A partnership including some of the most prominent businessmen in Greater Hartford is planning an $841 million development along the Connecticut River in East Hartford, including 1,000 apartments, 300,000 square feet of commercial space and new transport links. Port Eastside plans to demolish this building, along with the former Red Thread property and a crumbling parking garage, then acquire additional properties, to make a roughly 30-acre development site along the river. Kenny said the existing buildings should be demolished this year, with reconstruction possibly launching as soon as a year later and proceeding in phases. The entire project could be completed in seven or eight years, Kenny said.

All-star development team plans $841M housing, commercial project along CT River in East Hartford

West Hartford 1 LLC – which paid $2.75 million for the 57-acre campus along Asylum Avenue in 2021 – shared a plan in February mixing 492 apartments with retail, restaurants, a large medical office building and a grocery store. A new plan, which is scheduled for review by West Hartford’s Design Review Advisory Committee on Thursday, reduces the apartment number to 428, but adds 34 owner-occupied townhouse units and a 158-unit assisted living facility. That’s 620 residential units altogether. Public Relations firm Sullivan & LeShane issued a statement on behalf of West Hartford 1, saying the changes are in response to feedback from the town and residents living near the campus at 1700 and 1800 Asylum Ave. The plan also offers “enhanced buffering” of woodlands, wetlands and meadows, according to the release.

https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/updated-latest-plan-for-former-west-hartford-uconn-campus-reduces-apartments-adds-assisted

Nearly $11.9 million awarded to the Norwich Community Development Corp. by the state to build the first half of an access road into the proposed second business park in Occum will come as reimbursement for work done, prompting the agency to seek a line of credit from a local bank to cover the initial work. NCDC received the $11.4 million grant from the state Community Investment Fund and a $500,000 Urban Act grant to cover the construction of the access road, infrastructure and utility installations from Route 97 in Occum westward into the business park property, ending just past the Canterbury Turnpike intersection. LaRose said the business park project and the new road will benefit the utility with new electric, natural gas, water and sewer lines into the new business park. The road design is undergoing state and local permit reviews this fall. NCDC has selected the national firm, Cushman & Wakefield Commercial Real Estate Brokers to market parcels in the business park for development.

https://www.theday.com/local-news/20230830/funding-plan-in-place-to-start-work-on-norwich-business-park-road/

Denmark’s Orsted (ORSTED.CO), the world’s largest offshore wind farm developer, said on Wednesday it may see U.S. impairments of 16 billion Danish crowns ($2.3 billion) due to supply chain problems, soaring interest rates and a lack of new tax credits. Orsted’s share price tumbled 20% to its lowest level in more than four years and is down almost 70% from its 2021 peak. The company’s Ocean Wind 1, Sunrise Wind, and Revolution Wind projects are adversely impacted by several supplier delays, which may trigger impairments of up to 5 billion crowns, the company said in a statement. Orsted said the company’s discussions with “senior federal stakeholders” on obtaining more U.S. tax credits for its offshore wind projects had not progressed as expected, which in turn could lead to impairments of another 6 billion crowns.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/denmarks-orsted-anticipates-730-mln-impact-us-portfolio-2023-08-29/

Ørsted, the Danish utility that Gov. Ned Lamont has lavishly accommodated with more than $300 million in renovations to New London’s State Pier, made a bombshell disclosure Tuesday that its U.S. offshore wind projects are in peril, facing a $2.3 billion loss in value. The company said it would continue to build the six new wind farms it is developing off the East Coast, although abandoning them is an option. Ørsted said it has not been successful so far in attempting to increase federal tax credits for the projects from 30% to 40%. And Tuesday’s dire warnings seem like a shot across the bow to U.S. interests hungry for renewable energy. Ørsted is not alone in blaming supply issues, inflation and rising interest rates as threatening the viability of electricity supply contracts it has already signed with New England states.

https://www.theday.com/local-columns/20230830/opinion-connecticuts-wind-partners-are-in-a-tailspin/