The federal Department of the Interior announced on Monday that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement has completed a 60-day review of critical design and installation reports for the South Fork Wind farm, the final regulatory hurdle that clears the way for installation of the wind farm’s foundations and turbines.
The announcement follows the recent installation of the wind farm’s export cable, which makes landfall at Wainscott Beach and travels underground to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. The lift boat Ram and the vessel Living Stone, the latter bearing the export cable, have left the waters off the beach.
Construction and installation of the 12 wind turbines, a 130-megawatt project in a federal lease area about 35 miles off Montauk Point, is estimated to be completed during the summer, with the wind farm to be operational by year’s end.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which approved the wind farm in November 2021, transferred regulations governing offshore renewable energy activities to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in January.
“This final regulatory milestone clears the way for South Fork Wind to begin installation of foundations and turbines this summer, marking the on-time completion of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement review process and capping multiple years of work,” Meaghan Wims, a spokeswoman for South Fork Wind, said in a statement on Monday. “With the project expected to be operational by the end of 2023, South Fork Wind is on track to be the first completed utility-scale offshore wind farm in federal waters.”
