FIRST U.S. OFFSHORE WIND PROJECT BEGINS CONSTRUCTION

Deepwater Breaks Ground on America’s First Offshore Wind Project; Block Island Wind Farm to Cut Electricity Rates for Residents by 40 percent

April 27, 2015 Sierra Club

Deepwater Wind broke ground on the first U.S. offshore wind project on Monday, the five turbine, 30 MW installation off Rhode Island’s Block Island. Construction, which will create an estimated 300 jobs, is expected to be finished by the end of 2016. The Block Island project, proposed in 2009, has a power purchase agreement with National Grid. The turbines will provide electricity to all the island’s homes and businesses in place of diesel generators. Excess generation will go into the mainland grid via a new undersea cable. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has designated an area off the Rhode Island and Massachusetts coasts for wind development that has a 9,000 MW potential and could create 43,000 New England jobs. There were about 7 GW of offshore wind installed globally at the end of 2014, most in Europe, where 6.6 GW were in construction and development…DOE funding for offshore wind has been substantial but hasn’t broken the U.S. logjam. None of the other 14 projects in development, representing 4.9 GW of capacity, have started construction. click here for more

click to enlarge

Tweet