Rhode Island’s First Woman Governor Breaks Ground On Nation’s First Offshore Wind Farm
How does one break ground on an offshore wind energy project? Rhode Island figured it out, and the tiny state gets the first offshore wind farm n the US.
How does one break ground on an offshore wind energy project? Rhode Island figured it out, and the tiny state gets the first offshore wind farm n the US.
America’s nascent offshore wind industry took several steps forward over the past month with project announcements in Rhode Island, Texas, and Georgia.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has announced it will hold America’s third competitive offshore wind lease auction for 80,000 acres off Maryland’s coast.
Deepwater Wind has won the Interior Department’s first-ever competitive offshore wind lease auction, totaling 164,750 acres near Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Deepwater’s $3.8 million bid wins it the right to build the Deepwater Wind Energy Center, a 1,000MW utility-scale wind farm with 200 turbines and a regional transmission system linking to New York State and southeastern New England.
The Interior Department announced this week it will hold America’s second-ever competitive lease sale for offshore wind on 112,800 acres located 23.5 miles from Virginia Beach with 2,000 megawatts potential renewable energy capacity.
So far this week, the Interior Department has approved three major renewable energy projects and announced it will hold the first-ever auction for offshore wind leases – for a total of up to 4GW new clean energy capacity.
Said to be “the most thorough study ever conducted of a U.S. offshore wind farm,” Deepwater Wind invested three-years and $7 million in completing the permit applications for the proposed 30-MW Block Island Wind Farm, a project that management sees as a stepping stone on the path toward carrying out much larger projects off the US northeast and mid-Atlantic coast.
America is at a turning point toward harnessing 52 GW of generation capacity, 300,000 jobs, and $200 billion in economic activity from offshore wind. […]