As installation of the South Fork Wind farm’s monopile foundations nears, the first American-built offshore wind substation is making its way to the site.
A ship carrying the substation set sail from Ingleside, Tex., where it was designed and built by Kiewit Offshore Services Ltd., on May 24. It was to sail across the Gulf of Mexico and then up the East Coast for installation within the next few weeks.
The 1,500-ton, 60-foot-tall substation will sit on a monopile foundation within the 12-turbine, 132-megawatt wind farm, collecting the power generated by the turbines and connecting it to the electrical grid. It “will play a key role in enabling domestic energy production, strengthening America’s energy independence, and adding to the nation’s energy mix,” according to a statement from Orsted, which with Eversource Energy is constructing New York State’s first offshore wind farm and what is expected to be the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in federal waters.
The nation’s first wind turbine installation vessel, Charybdis, is under construction in Brownsville, Tex. Orsted and Eversource will be the first offshore wind developers to charter the vessel.
Onshore construction for the wind farm was completed last month with the restoration of Beach Lane in Wainscott, where the electric cable makes landfall before making its way underground to a Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. The project’s 68-nautical-mile underwater cable is being laid to the wind farm site, about 35 miles east of Montauk. The wind farm is expected to be operational by year’s end and is to power the equivalent of approximately 70,000 average-size residences with emission-free, renewable energy.
In other South Fork Wind news, Orsted announced last Thursday that it had signed an agreement to acquire Eversource Energy’s 50-percent interest in the not-contracted federal offshore wind-lease area jointly owned by the two companies. The lease area, which is in the early stages of development, contains approximately 187,000 acres of seabed for American offshore wind energy, with the potential capacity of 4 gigawatts.
Along with proximity to existing Orsted projects, which also include the Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind farms, the site features shallow water depth and favorable wind speeds compared to other sites in the United States and globally, according to a statement issued last Thursday. It is located approximately 25 miles off southern New England and could serve the New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut markets.
In addition to the seabed, the agreement entails contracts and partnerships for operational assets including port facilities in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Orsted will also take full ownership of an operations and maintenance hub in East Setauket.
The Providence Business Journal reported last month that Eversource’s chief executive officer said the company would sell all of its offshore interests before July 1. In a statement provided to The Star, the company’s vice president of investor relations said a strategic review of offshore wind assets was ongoing and a final decision on whether to divest had not been reached.
