Construction begins on nation’s first offshore wind farm

“NOIA congratulates Deepwater Wind as on-site construction begins on its Block Island Wind Farm offshore Rhode Island”.

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) — Construction has begun off Rhode Island’s coast on the nation’s first offshore wind farm.

The project will yield 30 megawatts of electric power, which will go to the 17,000 homes on Block Island with the remainder being transmitted to homes on the mainland by cable.

Today marks the “steel in the water” breaking, where the foundations will start being laid. The power from the farm will be expensive-sold to the state power company for the 26 cents/kWh-but the heads of Deepwater Wind still believe the successful running of this wind farm will help advance projects across the eastern seaboard that have sat in limbo for several years.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called it a “pioneering moment” for an important industry.

Britta Schulte, a German tourist who was visiting Block Island’s Southeast Light House on a bluff overlooking the work site on Monday, said she did not expect the wind turbines to create an eyesore for vacationers.

“We hope it jumpstarts offshore wind development along the East Coast”, said Claire Douglass, campaign director at Oceana, a nonprofit that focuses on protection of marine ecosystems.

The financing from Societe Generale and KeyBank is in addition to more than $70 million in equity funding already provided by Deepwater Wind’s existing owners, principally an entity of the D.E. Shaw Group.

The wind farm should be operational in the third quarter of 2016, Grybowski said.

According to the Ocean Conservancy, the location of the Block Island project was informed by Rhode Island’s Special Area Management Plan (Ocean SAMP).

A rival project, Cape Wind’s proposed 130-turbine wind farm off Nantucket Sound, for example, was for years expected to be America’s first such project but stalled in part due to a lack of local support. The facility will provide electricity directly from the wind farm to Block Island.

“This is an important first step, important momentum”.

One hurdle, however, is that the renewable energy industry has to fight, regularly, to keep the tax credits and incentives it has, while the well-established oil and gas industry has tax credits it no longer needs, Jewell said. Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said it was overwhelming to see the start of construction.