Construction finishes on the 1st US offshore wind farm

The assembly of the wind turbine towers began on Tuesday, Aug. 2, and proceeded without major delays.

Image courtesy of Deepwater Wind.

Now the project will turn to the testing stage before going online and becoming fully operational later in the year.

National Grid, which will own the $107m transmission and interconnection system, continues to work on onshore cabling and electrical facilities.

The developer said at the end of July that the project, located 4.8 km (3 miles) south-east of Block Island, Rhode Island, remained on schedule to be commissioned this autumn. The turbines, which are twice the height of the Statue of Liberty with blade tips towering 600ft above the water, will be provided by Alstom, which was acquired by GE in late 2015. Soe-Jensen spoke with The Block Island Times on Monday, August 15 at the Old Harbor inner basin dock. General Electric has been fabricating all of the components for the Block Island Wind Farm’s turbines. The two companies have just recently concluded the installation of five enormous wind turbines in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Developers, federal regulators and industry experts say the opening will pave the way for many more wind farms that eventually will provide power for many more Americans.

“I congratulate Deepwater Wind on completing construction on America’s first offshore wind farm, the Block Island Wind Farm off of Rhode Island”, said NOIA President Randall Luthi today (19 August). So construction of offshore wind farms is not new to industry professionals. “It’s the first offshore wind farm in the United States”.