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Dive brief:
- All 12 turbines of the 130 MW South Fork offshore wind project have been installed and are supplying power to the Long Island grid, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, said in a statement Thursday.
- Also on Friday, the Office of Ocean Energy Management announced that it has finalized the designation of a two-million-acre wind energy area in the Gulf of Maine, advancing the agency’s efforts to develop offshore wind there.
- BOEM also released today a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed Atlantic Shores North project on the New Jersey coast.
Diving knowledge:
South Fork Wind, a joint project between Eversource and Ørsted, began construction in early 2022 and installed its first monopile foundation in June.
Haugland Energy Group, a unit of Haugland Group, headquartered in Melville, New York, installed the system of banks of underground ducts for the South Fork Wind onshore transmission line and led the construction of the project’s onshore interconnection facility, according to the governor’s statement.
Other companies that worked on the job included Hauppauge, New York-based construction manager Elecnor Hawkeye, and Bay Shore, New York-based Roman Stone Construction, which made concrete mattresses to protect submarine cables. Ljungström USA, based in Wellsville, New York, provided a specialized steel structure in collaboration with Riggs Distler & Co. of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
The project is not fully completed as commissioning is still ongoing, but it is the first utility-scale offshore wind farm to complete construction in the US.
“The completion of the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the United States is an important national milestone, an important step toward achieving New York State’s ambitious climate goals, and essential to bringing clean energy directly to New Yorkers,” he said. say Jessica Ottney Mahar. director of policy and strategy at The Nature Conservancy in New York.
New York has set a goal of deploying 9 GW of offshore wind power by 2035. Most of the projects still under construction off the state’s coasts are larger than South Fork Wind; in February, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority selected the 810 MW Empire. 1 and 924 MW Sunrise Wind wind projects as part of the state’s fourth offshore wind application.
“With more projects in the pipeline, this is just the beginning of New York’s offshore wind future, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Biden administration and local leaders to build a clean and resilient energy grid,” Hochul said.
The Gulf of Maine Wind Energy Area finalized Friday by BOEM could support up to 32 GW of energy, “exceeding current state goals for offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine: 10 GW for Massachusetts and 3 GW for Maine,” according to the agency. said
BOOM asking for public comments until April 17 on “important environmental issues” and the “identification of reasonable alternatives” to be considered for the environmental assessment.
The agency is also seeking public comment through May 2 on the proposed Atlantic Shores project on the New Jersey coast. BOEM officially announced today their intention to complete an environmental impact statement for the construction and operation plan of the project.
“Federal agencies, tribes, state and local governments, interested parties, and the public are asked to comment on the scope of this EIS, the significant issues that need to be addressed, and the alternatives that must consider,” BOEM said in its Federal Register notice. .
Atlantic Shores has proposed the installation of 157 wind turbines, eight offshore substations and two potential export cable corridors that would land in New Jersey, with a potential landfall in New York City.
