National Grid, which will build, own and operate the majority of the new electrical infrastructure needed to connect the Block Island Wind Farm to the electric grid on Block Island and mainland Rhode Island, is progressing with cabling works required to connect the first American offshore wind farm to land.
In Narragansett, Rhode Island, all of the manholes and duct bank have been installed and crews have finished pulling all of the cable through the conduits along Burnside Avenue and Route 108. The only cable pulling work that remains is at the connection with the substations, which will take place in the fall.
Work continues on the new substation at Dillon’s Corner and at the Wakefield Substation. National Grid is preparing to install a sound mitigation barrier around the perimeter of the substation to reduce the noise from construction activities.
Both submarine cables, including export cable to wind farm and cable from mainland RI, have made landfall on Block Island, and the interconnection with the land cable has been completed.
The land cable installation is nearing completion and civil and foundation work for the new National Grid substation on BIPCo property continues.
Meanwhile, Deepwater Wind, the wind farm developer, is gearing up for turbine installation.
Fred. Olsen Windcarrier’s vessel Brave Tern recently arrived to St. Nazaire in France to pick up nacelles for the turbine installation works scheduled to start at the beginning of August.
Fred. Olsen-related company Global Wind Service (GWS) is in charge of lift supervision and installation of the GE Renewable Energy’s Haliade 150-6MW wind turbines.
The 240-foot long turbine blades have already arrived at Deepwater Wind and GE’s assembly facility at Port of Providence. The blades and the tower sections , already assembled there, are scheduled to travel by boat to the Block Island Wind Farm site in the beginning of August.