Watson Institute at Brown University
Public Policy

Jeff Grybowski ─ Opening a New Clean Energy Frontier: The First Offshore Wind Farm in America

Jeff Grybowski

Thursday, November 12, 2015

12 p.m.

Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy, 67 George Street

Free and open to the public

Deepwater Wind is now installing the first offshore wind farm in the United States off the coast of Rhode Island, the Block Island Wind Farm. Moving this pioneering project forward has required overcoming unique and complex financial, environmental permitting, contractual, regulatory, and construction hurdles. Jeff Grybowski, Deepwater Wind’s CEO, will discuss this success and what it means for the development of clean energy in the United States.

Jeff Grybowski ’93 (public policy) manages the Deep Water Wind’s portfolio of offshore wind and transmission projects. He has been intimately involved since its inception in the development and execution of the first offshore wind farm in the United States, Block Island Wind Farm. The project closed on a $300 million financing in early 2015 and is scheduled for commercial operations in late 2016.

Grybowski has been at the forefront of shaping the federal and state policies supporting offshore wind in the US, including playing key roles in the development of federal rules governing the leasing and permitting of offshore wind projects, federal tax policies supporting renewables, and policies at the state level throughout the northeast for offshore wind, transmission, and renewables.

Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy

Grybowski previously served as chief of staff to the governor of the Rhode Island, where he was the governor’s most senior advisor. He previously practiced corporate law at Hinckley, Allen & Snyder in Providence, Rhode Island and at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, New York.

Mr. Grybowski earned a bachelor's degree (honors) in public policy from Brown University, a JD (high honors) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, and served as a law clerk to the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.