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An energy project physically larger than a US state? Yes.

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Yeah, okay, okay, so it's Rhode Island.  Still, Today's Boston Globe is reporting that ten developers are lined up to potentially build what would be a wind energy area larger than the US State of Rhode Island.

We blog about this for two main reasons.

1. This is huge.  Literally.  Many project managers may gain employment from the project as it is conceived and built.

2. The connection to PM planning - especially in light of the Cape Wind project and its delays, this is huge. Figuratively.

Number 1 above is so obvious, given the cpacity of 4 Gigawatts of power, that we'll leave that to your imagination.

Here is what we do not want to leave to your imagination: the importance of stakeholder management and its deep connection to project risk identification, analysis, and response.  See, you thought this post was going to be all about renewable energy and Mother Earth, and butterflies and unicorns, didn't you?  But there are hardcore PM lessons to be learned in the area of sustainability and PM, and many of them are in play based on this article alone.

Here is an introductory snippet from the article:

"The wind farms would be built in an expanse of federal waters larger than Rhode Island, about 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and identified by the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management as an ideal place for such development. After more than two years of talks with local and state officials, environmentalists, fishermen, and tribal leaders..."

You see?  The tribal leaders were included up front, as were environmentalists and the fishing industry.  This was not the case with Cape Wind.

Here is another piece:

Developers say wind energy areas will also be the proving ground for the next generation of wind turbines, each capable of generating 5- to 7-megawatts worth of power and being located far enough offshore so they would not be visible to many people. The prospect of turbine towers visible to Cape Cod landowners sparked much of the opposition to Cape Wind.

Our favorite overall quote is here - indicating the benefit of long-term thinking when identifying risk and stakeholders, and how the two go hand-in-hand:

“The federal government is working with the state to try and ensure that by investing a lot of their energy on the front end, it will be easier for a company to take a project through the permitting and approval process".

What they are saying is that by doing a thorough job of identifying a wide variety of stakeholders, and through that expanded list of stakeholders fully and deeply identifying their areas of concern, we have a more intelligenlty articulated set of risks (both threats and opportunities) that we can analyze and respond to properly, rather than uncover haphazardly as we start (trying to do) the construction of the project.

Note the comments from Tommy Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management:

"one of the main goals of designating the wind energy areas is to streamline the approval process for offshore wind projects".

Beaudreau’s agency was particularly deliberate in determining the wind energy area off Massachusetts in an effort to minimize conflicts like those experienced by Cape Wind, which faced a decade of opposition and legal fights before winning federal and state approval in 2010. The project still faces appeals.

“It’s really about trying to design or make available areas up front that have buy-in from the states and communities,’’ Beaudreau said. “There are a lot of takeaways from Cape Wind.’’

We're sure you read that like we did.  Takeaways = Lessons Learned.  Do a better job of stakeholder identification.  This will enable you to do an exponentially better job of risk identification, which will yield a significantly better job of risk analysis and response.  And what that means is that the project - whether it be something as important as this and as large as a US state - or a new deck for your back yard, has a much better chance of getting done, and getting done properly.


Posted by Richard Maltzman on: June 04, 2012 03:47 PM | Permalink

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