In this episode, we hear from Rennie Meyers, Global Policy Lead at Ørsted, about her work in offshore wind, ocean policy, and biodiversity. Ørsted is a Danish energy company and the world’s leading & largest offshore wind developer. In our conversation, we discuss Rennie’s journey into working in sustainability, offshore wind infrastructure, Ørsted’s transition to clean energy, protecting ocean biodiversity, nature positive project development, and ocean policy. Rennie is a regulatory and public affairs specialist focusing on interactions between infrastructure, communities, and the environment. At Ørsted, she focuses on global ocean policy and oversees international policy forums and stakeholder engagement. This episode was recorded in Denmark in 2024.
In this episode, we hear from Rennie Meyers, Global Policy Lead at Ørsted, about her work in offshore wind, ocean policy, and biodiversity. Ørsted is a Danish energy company and the world’s leading & largest offshore wind developer. In our conversation, we discuss Rennie’s journey into working in sustainability, offshore wind infrastructure, Ørsted’s transition to clean energy, protecting ocean biodiversity, nature positive project development, and ocean policy.
Rennie is a regulatory and public affairs specialist focusing on interactions between infrastructure, communities, and the environment. At Ørsted, she focuses on global ocean policy and oversees international policy forums and stakeholder engagement. This episode was recorded in Denmark in 2024.
Connect with Rennie on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rennie-meyers-82a0b03b/
RESOURCES
Ørsted - Protecting Biodiversity
https://orsted.com/en/about-us/sustainability/biodiversity
Ørsted successfully pilots new technology that further optimises offshore wind monopile installation
https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2024/07/orsted-successfully-pilots-new-technology-that-fur-13959650
Ørsted to commercialise its state-of-the-art low-noise technology Osonic
ReCoral – Coral Restoration Project | Ørsted
https://orsted.com/en/who-we-are/sustainability/nature/net-positive-biodiversity-impact/recoral
Home | ARK Rewilding Nederland
Global Offshore Wind Alliance
Ocean Energy Pathway
https://oceanenergypathway.org/
Oceantic Network
WindEurope
CLEANPOWER
CREDITS
Hosted and produced by Kiana Michaan
Edited by Maxfield Biggs
Music by Naima Mackrel
Kiana: [00:00:00] Welcome to Climate with Kiana, a podcast about climate solutions shared through a framework of joy and justice. I'm your host, Kiana Michaan. A solar and clean energy advocate passionate about just climate action. This season, let's dig deeper into solutions to the climate crisis through inspiring conversations with climate experts who are leading important and innovative work to shape a more just and sustainable world.
Let's cultivate hope and joy by exploring these climate solutions and visioning new possibilities together.
Welcome back to the podcast. In today's episode, I speak with Rennie Myers, global Policy lead at Ørsted. Ørsted is a Danish energy company and the world's leading and largest offshore wind developer.
Rennie is a regulatory and public affairs specialist. [00:01:00] Focusing on interactions between infrastructure, communities and the environment. At Ørsted, she focuses on global ocean policy and oversees international policy forums and stakeholder engagement. In our conversation, we discuss Rennie's journey into working in sustainability, offshore wind infrastructure, installing offshore wind ocean policy, the history of offshore wind in Denmark, Ørsted's transition to clean energy, protecting marine mammals, revitalizing coral reefs, and more.
Please note this episode was recorded in Copenhagen in 2024. Enjoy this conversation on offshore wind.
I am very excited to be here in Denmark at or Ørsted's offices about to have a wonderful conversation on offshore wind and ocean policy. And learn all about the work that Ørsted is doing in these areas. So it is a pleasure to be here with Rennie. Rennie, thank you for [00:02:00] being here.
Rennie Meyers: Hello. Thanks for having me.
Kiana: Could you introduce yourself and what you do here at Ørsted?
Rennie Meyers: For sure. So my name's Rennie Meyers. I'm the Global Ocean Policy lead for Ørsted. I work in our global regulatory and public affairs offices, and what I do is I work on our global advocacy around oceans biodiversity.
And how we can make sure that we address the joint crises of biodiversity loss and climate change through action in the clean energy sector. Um, I live here in Denmark, but I grew up in the Bronx.
Kiana: Wonderful. Great to meet, have, be here with a fellow New Yorker in Denmark.
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely. For sure.
Kiana: It's, it's a small world, but, but a big one as well.
How did you wind up doing such interesting work here at the intersection of wind and biodiversity in the ocean? I'm like really excited to get into it cause I think it's just very intersectional and fascinating, important, needed work. What drew you to being [00:03:00] in sustainability, clean energy, and what has your journey been professionally A little bit.
Rennie Meyers: So I grew up in the Bronx and would go down every Saturday to volunteer as a docent at the New York Aquarium. Um, really great place to learn the basics of ocean science and to see New York City in dialogue with the ocean ecosystems that. It's actually surrounded by, and especially in the Bronx, you don't necessarily like look past the Verrazano Bridge and see that you're looking across the Atlantic and in an ecosystem, ocean ecosystem, pretty immediately.
Um. So in my studies I was really interested in ocean policy and governance and the way that these political structures shape our engagement with the ocean, you know, our military priorities, our coastal restoration priorities, our conservation priorities, and also now our energy priorities. Um, so got a degree in ocean policy, went to work on the hill on the subcommittee for Coast Guard and [00:04:00] Maritime Transportation under Chairman Pete DeFazio.
Um, and was really, it was just as the house was being taken back by the, by the Democrats. So there was a real push for engagement around marine decarbonization, around DEI, within the sort of ocean military services and the Coast Guard, um, and offshore wind. Um, because fundamentally offshore wind is a blue economy industry, it requires a ton of vessels.
Mariners laborers, uh, ocean scientists to make sure that we're developing these projects in the right way and delivering on time and on budget. Uh, and so getting that early perspective, I then came to Ørsted, uh, where first I worked in congressional engagement for the company and now I work in engaging on ocean policy.
So making sure that we are talking about what we do to make sure that [00:05:00] we're minimizing our impact on the ocean environment. That we are helping to support ocean ecosystems through restoration conservation, uh, and community engagement. Um, and delivering climate solutions at scale in a way that where our biodiversity goals and our climate goals talk to each other.
Kiana: So you've covered a lot of ground in the ocean space, and I think, I mean the, the nexus of ocean and energy is such an important topic, and maybe it's not intuitive when people are thinking about energy systems. I don't know if the ocean is the first thing that comes to mind, but, but with offshore wind, which we're goning to talk all about also just like submarines and nuclear energy.
Mm-hmm. Tidal energy. There's so many points of connection between the ocean and energy, and I think just watching that continue to shift as the clean industry industry is expanding is really fascinating. And I'm, I'm sure you've seen a lot of evolution in. [00:06:00] The policy conversations around this throughout your career?
Rennie Meyers: Totally. So I mean. We have lived with the oceans for millennia. Um, you know, the fishing industry is sort of one of the major examples of how, how dynamic of a relationship humans have had with our ocean ecosystems for a long time. Um, we have port infrastructure. We have offshore oil and gas and drilling.
We have, the, global marine transportation system. That is what gets goods to market now. It's a totally different economic and, system than we've, than we had, you know. Even 200 years ago, when we were really transporting so many things either fundamentally over land or as break bulk cargo, sea, fundamentally offshore wind is, well first it's been around since 1991, so you're at, or it's headquarters.
Uh, Ørsted is the world's largest offshore wind developer. We developed the first offshore wind project, Vinedeby in 1991 here in Denmark. [00:07:00] Um, and that was really part of a, of a sort of moment of vulnerability for the Danish government, uh, where they were thinking about making sure that they could be, have energy security where they could have economic security and, and where they could take advantage of an incredible wind resource that, that Denmark has.
And there are lots of countries all over the world that also have strong winds, uh, near in shallow waters near to shore that can help us address, uh, especially during the winter high energy costs, energy stability in the, in the home. Uh, it's one of the things that makes offshore wind such an exciting proposition for the northeast of the US where otherwise we might have to import liquid natural gas to make sure that we keep our homes warm.
so, that that system has been in development over time. The Danish government sort of was working with different corporations to start to create these different demo demonstration projects. And in the early aughts, the UK made some of the first [00:08:00] really large and aggressive rounds of leasing the crown estate.
started with one gigawatt, about one gigawatt, and then ultimately over the following four or five years created a site line for up to 32 gigawatts of offshore wind energy. And what that did was it also enabled a supply chain to grow up around that ecosystem because now people knew, oh, well, offshore wind's not just a demo demo project.
It's a commercial, commercially viable clean energy source, um, that we can use to make sure that we keep the lights on and homes warm. Um. Yeah, so happy to get into a little, the details of sort of the infrastructure around offshore wind a little bit more if you'd like to, but
Kiana: Sure. Let's, let's go for it.
Rennie Meyers: It relies on the infrastructure that we've used for things like fishing and cargo, cargo, marine cargo, transportation for so long. So port facilities where we can stage, uh, offshore wind turbines and the cells blade components. we need to make sure that we've got an even upstream. So in the case of New York, [00:09:00] we have, ports that we work with as far north as Albany to use union labor to construct.
What we called ad advanced foundation components that can be shipped down the Hudson and used and installed on these projects offshore. we need to use the existing maritime transportation resources that we have. So vessels, barges, heavy lift vessels, there's, we still need more. So this is a real opportunity for the development of the blue economy and to hopefully do that in a way that advances sustainability priorities.
And we're also working with ocean ecosystems and coastal habitats that have been impacted for many generations, where we sort of owe it to those ecosystems, not just through avoiding and mitigating our impact, but doing restoration work as well. So it's sort of a, I like to think of offshore wind as being sort of the, at the center of the blue economy because it touches so many different parts of, the blue economy that otherwise might remain separate.
Kiana: That's a really great point. I mean, I'm learning more about how deeply [00:10:00] interconnected it is, and as you were saying, with the amount of maritime shipping that's needed. Mm-hmm. It's also an opportunity to have like shipping decarbonization, right? Mm-hmm. In tandem with the development. Um, and there's just, there's so much opportunity in blue economy.
Rennie Meyers: Totally power to X, for example. Yes. So the ability to use green electrons to generate hydrogen, M methanol, e ammonia, sort of the whole suite of e-fuels. I think one of the things that people are often really excited about is the prospect of co-locating that with offshore wind, or using the electrons from offshore wind to be able to decarbonize our maritime transportation system.
I think from my perspective. It's, we should start for offshore wind with, you know, for our, our crew transfer vessels for our, heavy lift vessels, you know, finding sustainability solutions to decarbonize that footprint as best possible. Ørsted has invested quite a bit in making sure that we've got hybrid vessels, that we are sort of looking for [00:11:00] innovative solutions in the vessel decarbonization space for those specific onsite assets.
And then using the sort of cheapest possible electrons for creating things like e-ammonia, e-methanol, and hydrogen. So we're at a moment, I think, where the broader maritime decarbonization ecosystem, is moving really quickly. We need to make sure that we've got the right sort of pathways to market for those sorts of commodities. Mm-hmm. And that we're supporting sort of innovation in that space. yeah, I think it's a. An exciting time
Kiana: It is. Yeah. And using wind for e fuels and power to X is like the cleanest way to approach it. 'cause there's a lot of challenges, right? When you're using other Yeah. Other fuel sources. Before we dig into more of the biodiversity, um, things I want to chat about a little bit more, I guess kind of background context.
So Ørsted used to be a fossil fuel company. That's so fascinating to me. Can you just [00:12:00] briefly share a little bit about how the company transitioned and what its mission and vision is looking like today being a completely different company?
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. So basically Ørsted has flipped itself on its head.
Mm-hmm. Uh, in the, again, in the early aughts, we were formerly known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas, or DONG. Uh, it was a, a merger of six different Danish companies that was, was and is majority owned by the Danish state. Um, and we were one of the most fossil and fuel coal intensive. Uh, companies in Europe and contributed a substantial percentage of, of Denmark's sort of emissions.
Um, and in the years following the formation of Dong, the company sensed a need for a change in direction. There was the making climate change a political priority and, and increasing buy-in and recognition of the, of the crisis that we were collectively facing. In 2007 and 2008, the EU had adopted a 20% renewable energy target for renewable energy by 2020.
And in [00:13:00] 2009, COP 15 was held in Denmark, in Copenhagen. So all of this created sort of an ecosystem, uh, where our corporation and our CEOs and leader, leader at the time recognized that there was a real business opportunity in providing climate solutions, that it was the right thing to do, and that Ørsted in particular had a unique architecture to be able to provide those solutions.
We had already invested in Vinedeby. We had created the first offshore wind farm. we had, you know, sort of maybe a 20, 25%, uh, clean energy portfolio and you saw the sort of transformative cap capability of the company. So in some ways, there's the company's gone through its own just transition, um, over time.
and in 2008, we decided to flip our business ratio of fossil fuel to renewable generation capacity. by 2040. So we have a scope, scope, 1, 2, 3 targets. We're, uh, the first energy company to have a science-based target for emissions reduction, validated by SPTI. and we're right on track [00:14:00] to deliver on that, which we're really proud of.
the fundamentally, I think what's what, and, and speaking of the just transition, what we should all recognize is that a lot of the skills that we're going to need to be able to build clean energy, especially offshore. We have available from, you know, decades of work in the oil and gas business, offshore, operating safely, fundamental engineering principles and understanding of ocean ecosystems.
so how do we make sure that we are bringing people along with us on the journey to decarbonizing our, our energy system? so I work with many colleagues in this organization who. We're working on oil and gas projects who now are able to apply those skills to sustainable development of offshore wind instead.
Kiana: It's really important, as you were saying, when thinking about just transition and workers' rights, how to apply the transferable skills and not leave people in communities behind, right. As we're in the energy transition. So that's good to hear that. Right. [00:15:00] People are able to, to grow and change with as the energy system, right is changing. So Ørsted developed the first wind here in Denmark.
Rennie Meyers: First offshore wind
Kiana: first, offshore wind farm here in Denmark. And the largest in the world
and is really a global leader, right? You have projects. Globally and perhaps we'll mention a handful of them as examples.
Mm-hmm. Um, of course I'm based in the us which has a much less mature offshore wind market compared to Denmark and Europe. Um, but Ørsted is also developing there and beginning to lead as well. Can you speak to. What the future of offshore wind for Ørsted in the US looks like?
Rennie Meyers: I can try. Yes. Um, fundamentally, there's a great resource in the US not just the union labor and people and capabilities able to deliver these projects, but also a great wind resource as particularly in the northeast, but also across the us uh, a [00:16:00] shallow outer continental shelf, which means that you.
Can use monopile installation in certain parts of, of the US market and in other cases in California, for example, investment in floating.
Kiana: Can you explain what monopiles are for those who don't know?
Rennie Meyers: Totally. Yeah. So fundamentally to build offshore wind, you, take a vessel out to sea. you've, you, you might have, there are lots of different ways and different vessels that you can use to do certain types of parts of the installation.
You install a monopile, so basically a hollow steel cylinder in the sea floor. And then on top of that you'll install the, turbine, the next phase of turbine components, you'll have a rotor and the blade components right sitting on top of the, the rest of the turbine. You might have some, intermediary connecting pieces also that's in part the advanced foundation components so people can get on and off.
The, the monopile, we. Go out, we install those. The traditional method of installation is that you'll use [00:17:00] a real, multi ton hammer and you'll. Sort of force that, monopile into the sea floor with weight and pressure. and as part of that, we have a basically what are called protected species observers who are on the vessels surrounding the, in the installation, looking out for marine mammals that are vulnerable to acoustic impacts and protected species.
So they'll be looking out, we install these things called bubble curtains. So another vessel will go around the outside of the monopile. Injecting basically bubbles into the water column, which creates sort of a mitigating and dampening sound shield as we do that installation. And then another vessel finishes that puzzle piece that I was just talking about.
Then there's a cable that takes the energy from the individual turbines into a single substation usually, and then from that substation, a single cable or maybe two that will get you to shore and you have another substation on shore. And that through the grid and transmission system [00:18:00] transforms, feeds the grid effectively with the electrons on hand.
Kiana: It's a lot of components.
Rennie Meyers: Mm-hmm. Totally. They're massive projects. Um, they're, they're fundamentally large scale infrastructure projects. That is part of why it can take up to a decade for them to come to fruition and, and start to deliver clean energy to the grid.
Kiana: That makes sense. Then the scale of energy they're able to produce is well worth it because you have the ability to have much larger turbines and installations offshore compared to onshore projects.
Rennie Meyers: For sure. You don't have the constraints of trying to navigate large blade components through, you know, small roads, tight corners, so. Um, you can have your pieces moved by barge, but those barges and other vessels have to be big enough to accommodate those components.
That's part of also why you don't just need port infrastructure for staging. You also need sort of coastal manufacturing capabilities and, to be able to build those monopile components, those blade components, et.
Kiana: So components are [00:19:00] almost limited by the size of the vessels that are available to bring them off shore.
Rennie Meyers: Right. So to, to be able for, as we sort of, we're in this race right now mm-hmm. Between many of the, um, blade and component suppliers and the supply chain to. Uh, get, make bigger and bigger turbines. Fundamentally, the larger the turbine, the usually the more energy you can produce per rotation. we can talk a little bit about that technology.
Kiana: Yeah.
Rennie Meyers: But, um, yeah, so the limiting factor there is really the size of the ship. So what does that mean? It means we need to invest in our shipyards. We need to invest in these large, heavy lift vessels that do some of the traditional installation methodologies, or instead just released, uh, news.
Kiana: Let's talk about it.
Rennie Meyers: Yeah. We just, um, had a successful installation demonstration, installation of a low noise monopile installation technology that doesn't even use a hammer. this is in the Baltic Sea where it's already a pretty, noisy ocean ecosystem. [00:20:00] And what this technology enables us to do is to, jet water into the sea floor and then through a couple other pieces that are under patent review, so we can't talk about yet.
Have a basically admit no more noise than the background noise of that, of that ecosystem. Um, these are the types of installation technologies that we need, particularly as we scale up right now. The, the mitigation technologies like the bubble curtain, um, enable us to do that construction in a way that meets guidelines for avoiding impacts to protected species.
But as we get bigger and we use bigger hammers, the noise gets louder. And so it's on us to make sure that we're coming up with new solutions so that we can continue that scale up of development of green energy projects without compromising ecological health.
Kiana: Well, congratulations on the announcement.
Rennie Meyers: Thank you very much
Kiana: of that technological innovation. I'm sure that that will continue to be. Become standard practice in ways that [00:21:00]
Rennie Meyers: it'll depend.
Kiana: Right.
Rennie Meyers: It'll depend. I, you know, the thing that is, the reason why the companies like this exist of this size is because we are working in widely diverse ecosystems And ocean environments.
So you might have silt, you might have sand, you might have bedrock, you might have all sorts of different sea floor conditions. That mean one technology might not be appropriate or another might be more appropriate. So we need to make sure that we're training people, that we've got a, a strong marine science community and education pathway, geoscientists and geophysicists engineers that are enthusiastic about participating in the clean energy transition and designing these projects in a way that mitigates impacts as, as best possible.
Kiana: What are some of the species that are sensitive to noise or that you're particularly concerned about in the protecting and the installation process.
Rennie Meyers: Mm-hmm. across ecosystems globally, any marine mammal, so whales, seals, sea lions, um, harbor, [00:22:00] porus, uh, anything that communicates and, and intakes communication through noise underwater. We wanna make sure that we are doing the most that we can to mitigate noise. So that might, that include, that might include only building when they're not around. that might include, so that's called a time of year restriction. we might only be building, um, in specific parts of the ocean.
We might include those mitigation technologies. We might avoid certain parts of the ocean altogether.
Kiana: And so these are some of the reasons. Also, the pre-project due diligence is so.
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely
Kiana: rigorous and long when it comes to the development of these projects, right? Because there's numerous studies that have to be conducted to make sure that all the species present are protected throughout the project.
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely, yes. So in any country, you have a ministry of the environment or an environmental organization, and that's permitting or consenting your project. Uh, they're the ones who are responsible for working, for [00:23:00] telling the, the developer, here are our standards. The developer proposes mitigation actions helps fund research science to make sure that we are abiding by those relatively strict environmental conditions.
And that's part of what can take such a long time. So those permitting processes are long dialogues between a developer and a regulator to make sure that you're, um, hitting the code on the nose and doing what you can the most you can, given the conditions of the site that you have.
In some markets though you might actually just be handed the first stage of an environmental impact statement. So for example, in Denmark, they have what's called the one stop shop, where there's one agency that is responsible for giving you the site, doing the site assessment, and in some cases building out that first leg of transmission to the facility.
Whereas in other markets, you are responsible for doing. The major you, once you [00:24:00] win the site in an auction, you have to do all the site assessment, you have to do all the transmission and cable installation, all that stuff. So it really depends on the local regulatory environment.
Kiana: Right. Some of those regulatory environments are more friendly to project development, I take it. Yeah. Because then project costs can really go up if you're responsible for those other portions.
Rennie Meyers: That depends.
Kiana: Yeah. So beyond just. You know, protecting biodiversity and local marine ecosystems. What is Ørsted doing to really have nature positive, net positive projects? I know you have some things around Coral and Taiwan.
We were just talking about this project in the North Sea as well. I'd love to hear about these ways that, or that is innovating to really. Go above and beyond to prioritize biodiversity in the ocean.
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely. Um, so Ørsted has a net positive [00:25:00] ambition. So, you know, we want to contribute to what's called nature positive, right?
Which is like sort of a society economy-wide, commitment to integrating nature into decision making at all levels. But net positive for us means that per asset, for the ones that we construct and commission after 2030. We want them to have a net positive impact on the local environment. We've developed a first of its kind, biodiversity measurement framework that basically has built into our project development process a way of not just meeting the sort of no net loss requirements for avoidance and mitigation that we might have from the local regulator, but then saying, how do we choose.
three to 10 species and habitats that we want to make sure get additional investment because they can contribute to broader ecosystem health. They, because they face particular vulnerability, because they, can deliver additional climate benefits, for example, like blue carbon sequestration. and we build that into the product of offshore wind, for [00:26:00] example, that we, that we offer.
How do we do that? Well, first we had to issue, we were the first energy company to issue a blue bond. So we are financing us all of these biodiversity projects, a suite of pilot projects globally that can help us build our internal competency, figure out how to integrate biodiversity into our projects, create a vocabulary, for example, within the company for nature inclusive design.
and then yeah, finance that through the blue bond and implement those in the market. So we've done large scale native oyster restoration. We've worked to with World Wildlife Foundation for fund for a to develop 3D printed reefs, here in Denmark, which are installed near one of our sites. In conjunction with sort of a, a cod juvenile habitat near shore. There's cod habitat in the 3D printed reefs offshore.
Kiana: What is the 3D printed reef? What is the material habitat?
Rennie Meyers: It's a pH neutral concrete. [00:27:00]
Kiana: Okay.
Rennie Meyers: So basically it's a imitating a reef without leaching additional acid, which traditionally other concrete might do, um, into the ocean ecosystem. And then as you've mentioned, there's the re coral project in Taiwan.
So the re coral project is where we've, uh, we're working with a local university to install a coral restoration system onto the foundation of our projects off of Taiwan, that were basically taking small coral polyps. harvesting them when they're washing up to shore. So they, they're not participating in sort of the larger coral aggregation.
growing them to maturity on small little pucks of that same, pH mutual concrete, creating a net, and then installing that on the turbine foundation itself. The idea here being that this is something that will. Provide better water quality, access to light being further offshore and closer to the [00:28:00] surface than some of the nearshore, maybe more damaged environments that they might otherwise be operating in or trying to come to maturity.
And, fundamentally, coral is one of the most vulnerable species to climate change. And so the hope is that it's that exact same integrated product. What can we do to make sure that we're pushing the boundaries of what's possible? Not just in offshore wind, but more broadly in the realm of sort of joint action on climate and nature.
this is one of those projects that is I think, really sort of audacious and, and I, we've been working with the Changhua University, the local university. This is really about seeing if it works, right? And all of our pilot projects are about creating a vocabulary within the organization. Fundamentally, I think we wanna make sure that we're taking meaningful action, and that's why that biodiversity measurement framework is really focused on being transparent about is what we're doing working, what else do we need to do to reach that net positive ambition.
Kiana: Yeah, and [00:29:00] things can seem crazy when you're trying them for the first time, but without trying, you don't know. You know what actually extremely helpful solution will work. Right. And stick. It seems like that in the beginning of, of wind energy. And now it's come so far. So it's really interesting to see how you're, it's able to build on the existing infrastructure you're creating for the wind to expand those benefits.
Rennie Meyers: Yeah.
Kiana: I did watch the video.
Rennie Meyers: Nice.
Kiana: That Ørsted that has about ReCoral it seemed extremely challenging To just implement in terms of ocean weather conditions. The timing of the coral spawning. It was high action. I was great. I was like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen next? Will it work?
Rennie Meyers: Oh, thank you.
Kiana: I know that video was released about a year ago, I guess, are there any updates on sort of the
Rennie Meyers: we'll have some updates shortly that I cannot talk about. but it's a, it's about operationalizing this stuff, right? I mean, the other alternative and part of what we've done in a different pilot project in the UK with the Humber [00:30:00] Estuary.
Much more low tech. It's mm-hmm. You know, sea grass restoration, oyster restoration, making do, which is basically tying little sea grass seeds into little sort of tafta pockets and injecting them into the, to the soil. Yeah. Much simpler process than trying to get a guy back on the foundation of a turbine to install one of these cages. Fundamentally, the safety of the staff is what's critically important to us. So
Kiana: of course
Rennie Meyers: that's, that's always something to keep in mind when we're thinking about, well, what intervention can we make?
Kiana: Could you explain again, um, the model that was in the other room here mm-hmm. With the cages that's in the North Sea.
Rennie Meyers: Yeah. That project. So yeah, we've partnered with a ARK which is a rewilding group, NGO in the Netherlands, where we have the Borssele one and two projects. so Borssele already had some super straightforward nature inclusive design install, installed with that project. Some [00:31:00] cod pipes that are that same pH neutral concrete that are designed for the specific side of a mature cod.
So additional habitat on a sea floor that's seen a decent amount of change, due to dredging and, and climate impacts. we also installed these gabions, so these different styles and structure of netting around, native oysters that are going to be used basically for reconstructing the habitat through traditional endemic species.
I think that project's still underway and we have sort of annual survey cycles that are tied to each of these projects to make sure that we are collecting as much data as possible about what works and what doesn't.
Kiana: Right. So most of these projects are still in sort of piloting phases
Rennie Meyers: for those, yeah, those original pilot projects are still underway. Um, but because of that sort of 10 year timeframe that I told you about for offshore wind project. For us to meet our [00:32:00] ambition and we have to be incorporating these design features into our projects today.
Kiana: Right
Rennie Meyers: so that's part of why we've established the measurement framework. It's really to build that into the fundamental way of thinking as a company when we're designing any renewable energy asset, so onshore, offshore, you name it, but it's just part of the fabric of it, right?
Kiana: You briefly, I know you said Ørsted doesn't do floating, but could you just explain for those who don't know what the difference is with floating offshore wind versus a traditional installation?
Rennie Meyers: For sure. Yeah, so right traditional monopile installation we talked about. It's getting that steel. So, so a tube into the sea floor, fundamentally for floating, what you're doing is you've created a, there are lots of different styles. There can be a sort of triangle, multi pin, infrastructure piece that acts as the foundation and is then moored with cables to the sea floor.
So this is for deep sea environments where there's no way to make a sort of [00:33:00] cost effective monopile that goes down, you know, hundreds and hundreds of feet. Instead, it's about creating a floating surface object that you then use cabling to more to the sea floor. Um, that means that you don't necessarily have to use a heavy lift installation vessel because you don't need to hammer the monopile into the sea floor.
You can use a tug and barge system. and it's exclusively for, deep sea environments. And it's a technology that's evolving. There are lots of. Of, demonstration projects outside of Scotland and Norway, um, that our competitors have, have been involved in. and we'll see, I think in the US in particular, a lot of development off of the, off of the west coast in this arena.
Kiana: Interesting. Well, curious to see how that Evolves.
Rennie Meyers: It's, I think it's gonna be, it's, it's part of that innovation journey for the industry, right? For stead, when we were first investing in offshore wind, we also set a cost reduction target, right? We said that we want this to be a hundred euros [00:34:00] per kilowatt hour, and that was part of our way of saying this is cost competitive, this is feasible.
and if we make the right investments in the supply chain, that this can become an effective means of reaching our clean energy targets by using offshore space de-conflicting onshore space and capturing the incredible wind resource that's at sea. We're going to need to continue to see that same journey across clean energy types and solar onshore wind have already come down that cost curve.
Kiana: How long are we thinking it's gonna take offshore wind?
Rennie Meyers: No comment
No comment. Yeah.
Kiana: I dunno either.
Rennie Meyers: I mean, so yes, if the question is, yeah. You know, what do we need to do to make sure that we can provide offshore wind right at a reasonable cost to to local community members and to the enter the grid.
Kiana: Policy.
Rennie Meyers: Well, policy pieces for sure. Right? You need to have an enabling environment and, and a clear and consistent regulatory framework so that you can get good investment at a good [00:35:00] return. you need to have a reliable and available supply chain, reliable and available labor. you need to. And they end, and a reliable political ecosystem also to ensure that there's consistency for the industry to continue to make those investments to, that there's a predictable timeline for construction, that kind of stuff.
Um, so I think globally there are groups like the Global Offshore Wind Alliance and the uh, ocean Energy Pathways programs that are working to provide technical assistance to nations across the world in developing their regulatory regimes around offshore wind. Building on the lessons learned from Europe, APAC in the us.
Kiana: Right. That's good to hear. Because as we know, some political environments are less stable than others.
Rennie Meyers: Absolutely.
Kiana: Much is to be seen. can you talk about the impact of. Sort of international policy Such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Rennie Meyers: for sure
Kiana: on working in these [00:36:00] environments?
Rennie Meyers: For sure. Uh, UNCLOS is an interesting one. the Un United Nations Law of the Sea UNCLOS for short. has helped define the processes and norms for offshore wind development in many ways, because it established what an EEZ was in the first place, right? An exclusive economic zone is the place where you as a nation can make rules about how infrastructure is developed, around how fishery fishing happens, how ocean use happens writ large.
so defining that 12 nautical mile 200 nautical mile zone, meant that you were defining the spaces of state jurisdiction and federal jurisdiction. in the case of the us even though the US isn't a sign signatory to UNCLOS. UNCLOS has all sorts of interesting policies around artificial reef development, artificial island development.
all of these things do have implications for things like energy islands. but fundamentally that's as much about national laws and policies and bilateral agreements between [00:37:00] nations as it is about international law. Really, international law in this case creates the framework by which. nations have a shared language with which to talk to each other in addition to some binding agreements.
Kiana: Like you said, the framework from international policy. Mm. Um, there's so much opportunity for more development globally, and I think it's really different country to country and each country and each. Project has such a unique set of factors, right? To consider
Rennie Meyers: Yeah.
Kiana: To make it a successful.
Rennie Meyers: Well, we've also got, you know, shared goals and targets, right? Right. So like 300 G 80 gigawatts globally for offshore wind today, and tripling renewables target in the case of the climate COP, or protecting 30% of your, uh, local, local ecosystems, right.
For the national targets as part of the, the biodiversity plan. Um, all of those pieces I think are. We, we need to make sure, and this is why nationally determined contributions in the case of the climate cop are so important that [00:38:00] every nation state has a plan for how they're going to help us globally achieve our climate targets, given that so many of the externalities of climate change don't stay where they're created. Right.
Kiana: Right.
Rennie Meyers: so in the name of, of Climate Justice and energy justice, it's as important that we think about how we're trading those climate goods across boundaries and borders. And it's important to think about the same for biodiversity as well.
Kiana: Absolutely. And that's a great segue to, I was just going to ask you about climate, ocean and energy justice.
Rennie Meyers: So I think let's focus in on offshore wind specifically. Right? So for offshore wind, the reality is it's not the solution for every energy need, right? So you have to think about where you have load, but you also, I think the equity piece comes in, in, into access to capital, right? And so that depends on your credit rating as a country that depends on your, the perceived political [00:39:00] stability, all of these different pieces.
so part of what we need to make sure that there's energy, equity and, and equitable investment is. De-risking those contexts saying yes, there's feasibility here. That's why groups like OEP are so important, the Ocean Energy Pathways group, because they can help say, here's what's feasible, here's what's meaningful, here's how, you know what the right technological solution might be.
Underpinning all of that and jumping from the hyper global to the hyperlocal is community process. Every community is different. Some communities might not want a given technology. Why now? If that's because they're very well informed or very poorly informed, is, is the question. Right? Misinformation is a huge challenge, particularly in in the offshore wind industry because, uh, we need to meet, people need to be scientifically literate.
There needs to be, you know, focused engagement. There needs to be good resourcing to enable people to attend community meetings and participate. So if you're somebody [00:40:00] who has responsibilities at home as a family caretaker. You might not feel like you have the bandwidth to participate in learning sessions around a given technology.
You might have to take care of somebody, you might have to go to work, and that might make you less receptive to even having a conversation around. What does pivoting off of the carbon intensive business as usual path look like? so some of it is just about enabling communities, frontline communities, low income communities, to have the resources to equitably engage with the science and with developers.
To stand up for the things that they think are important, and, and understand technically what's going on in the development of a project. And so, especially when you have a new technology coming online somewhere, it's important to provide as much resource as possible to teaching people, you know, what is this thing?
How does it work? What are some of the environmental implications? what is it going to do to the, to the local energy market? But that really [00:41:00] depends on there being good brokers of that information locally.
Kiana: What would you say to someone who's working in a different industry or working in a different aspect of clean energy? Who's interested in working in, in offshore wind?
Because, you know, I'm so enjoying speaking to you and I'm learning so much. and I feel like, you know, I didn't know that work being an offshore wind was a job option when I was younger.
Rennie Meyers: Right, totally. And it's a, it's to come back to your previous question, right? That like. How did I know I wanna end up in this space? I care about the ocean. I care about living for myself and my community in a livable, on a livable planet. That's my fundamental motivator. And offshore wind is an area where there's an incredible potential. There's an, there's just in terms of the energy capacity alone, but also where and how we can deploy be.
There's a way of doing that in a way that uplifts community priorities engages. union labor and delivers additional environmental benefit, or at the very [00:42:00] least, delivers large scale and renewable energy infrastructure projects in a way that is less disruptive than, than the fossil fuel industry has been in the past.
For somebody looking to get into offshore wind, it's, these are massive projects that take environmental expertise, engineering expertise, finance expertise, um, political expertise, um, communications expertise, right? There's, there's something for everybody. Um, there's definitely a way in if you think that you want to try to continue to advance these sort of large scale solutions.
At the same time, I also think it's important to recognize, especially as a company that also doesn't just do offshore wind, we do onshore solar and all these other pieces. There's no one silver bullet energy solution, and we need to think about the right solution for the right place, the right time, from everything from macro economic arguments to what are communities asking for and willing to partner on.[00:43:00]
Um. So I think it's, it's also finding an organization for me it was Ørsted, that let you work and operate in the way that feels right and authentic to you. That lets you speak your mind and advocate for the things that you think are important to do in the development of what is, for me, an existential solution as much as it is a commercial product.
I think that that's my, my sort of short pitch to get into offshore wind. Shoot, hit me up on, on LinkedIn. but overall, like there's some real, the, the industry is looking for people, right? You, if you're in the us. the International Partnership Forum, uh, now run by Oceanic, the, if you're in the Europe, wind Europe and the, their conferences, uh, the Clean Power conferences.
I mean, all of these trade associations in particular are. Really good places to understand the landscape and skills that people are looking for. Uh, if you're an environmental advocate who wants to see, see these solutions delivered sustainably, [00:44:00] you know, I think it's, it's great to have some strong science literacy and start to engage by seeing what the closest project to your front door is and engaging with the process of that project under development.
And because of the case of the US these projects are popping up around the country that that opportunity is only denied to folks who are living outside of the coastal zone. However, our supply chain touches 48 states, right? Ultimately, if you are working in manufacturing in Nevada, you might be developing a product that will get used for the construction of a vessel being built in New Orleans that's going to serve as projects in New York. true example.
So you know, I think thinking of yourself as part of an interconnected network of solution providers effectively is really the first step in terms of working in a way that's joyful. I think we are now at a [00:45:00] point where everyone, many people recognize.
The exist existential threat of climate change and a biodiversity laws. Um, it's hard to remain hopeful, I think, often in that context, especially when our politics are so closely tied to our ability to create solutions on either of those fronts. Um, so you have to do that work with good people who share your vision, support you, and see the value that you individually bring in whatever way you can to contributing to fighting the good fight.
And that if there's, if you're an ocean girly, that there's room for you in the clean energy, in finding clean energy solutions. As much as there is a need for people to come from just a pure energy policy perspective into these dialogues too. It.
Kiana: Love it. Ocean girlies for clean energy.
Rennie Meyers: Yeah. Yeah. I'll, I'll make the bumper sticker tomorrow.
Kiana: There's just so many opportunities to get involved, it sounds like. Mm-hmm. Kind of no matter where you are or your skill sets [00:46:00] and interests.
The offshore wind industry is touching, just the supply chain touches so many areas, both industry and regionally speaking, and it's. A piece of a much larger picture of the energy transition, that's really important.
And I'm just struck by once again, how deeply interconnected Kind of all of these challenges, solutions and industries are in order to, to make it happen. and it wouldn't happen without, you know, people like you working on teams like you do, where hopefully you can.
Find the, the joy in being able to work on solutions with people who are, who are passionate about, about these issues, so for sure. Thank you so much for taking the time today and, I'm, I'm energized hearing about the work you're doing.
Rennie Meyers: Thank you. Same to you. It's important to get, I think, these stories and experiences out there. really happy to, to stay, stay in [00:47:00] contact and keep telling the good stories that are coming out of this growing industry.
Kiana: Wonderful. Thank you, Rennie.
Rennie Meyers: Thank you so much, Kiana.
Kiana: Thank you for listening. Climate with Kiana is co-produced by Kiana Michaan and Lucy Little. This episode was edited by Maxfield Biggs. Theme music by Naima Mackrel. Thank you again to the Clean Energy Leadership Institute for their support. This podcast is recorded and produced in New York City on unceded Lenape land. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with a friend. Leave a comment and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts.
For more information about the guests and topics discussed, please visit climate with kiana.com. Until the next time, stay joyous.