Simply Blue Group, an Irish company with a pipeline of over 9 GW of floating offshore wind projects worldwide, has appointed a leadership team for new operations in the U.S. – a 30 GW market opportunity for floating offshore wind by 2040, the firm says.
“Floating is the future and next frontier for U.S. offshore wind power,” says Kevin Banister, the new chief development officer and president of Simply Blue USA, who led offshore wind development at Principle Power for almost 10 years. “As Simply Blue assesses floating offshore wind markets around the globe, no opportunity ranks higher than the U.S. I couldn’t be more proud of the team we’ve assembled to help responsibly develop offshore wind on all of America’s coasts.”
Along with Banister, the industry veterans Simply Blue has appointed to lead its U.S. team include:
Stephanie McClellan, Ph.D., Chief of Strategy & Policy, North America and founder, Special Initiative on Offshore Wind;
Alana Duerr, Ph.D., Director, U.S. Projects, who led DNV’s North American offshore wind advisory team; and,
Karolina Pietrzak, Deputy Chief Development Officer, who has a decade of U.S. and European offshore wind expertise.
“Our U.S. leadership team has, each in their own unique way, helped lay the foundation for U.S. offshore wind,” says Sam Roch-Perks, CEO of Simply Blue. “Their expertise and experience are just what’s needed to push the next frontier – floating wind off America’s coasts. This team, combined with Simply Blue’s experience in floating wind projects in Ireland and the U.K., will hasten the expansion of U.S. offshore wind into new areas that have vast, untapped wind resources.”
