The 132 MW South Fork Wind offshore wind farm delivered the first power to New York State’s power grid, announced Governor Kathy Hochul on 6 December.
For the first time in history, families and businesses on Long Island are turning on their lights with renewable offshore wind power as part of the mix, now that #SouthForkWind has achieved its ⚡ First Power ⚡ pic.twitter.com/xAB69Iht1I
The South Fork Wind project is being built by a joint venture between Eversource and Ørsted. The joint venture reached the final investment decision for the project at the beginning of last year.
The offshore substation was installed at the location site, some 30 kilometres southeast of Block Island and some 56 kilometres east of Montauk Point, New York, in July this year.
The first out of twelve Siemens Gamesa 11 MW wind turbines was hoisted into place by the offshore construction team at the end of November.
The project has completed the installation of two turbines, with one operational, and is planned to become fully operational by early 2024.
Van Oord’s offshore installation vessel, the Aeolus , is installing the wind turbines.
“South Fork Wind will power thousands of homes, create good-paying union jobs and demonstrate to all that offshore wind is a viable resource New York can harness for generations to come,” said Governor Kathy Hochul.
Once complete, South Fork Wind will generate approximately 130 MW of renewable energy, enough to power about 70,000 Long Island homes. The renewable energy from the project will eliminate up to six million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road, said the developers.
“East Hampton has now made history as the first community in New York to receive clean energy from an offshore wind farm,” said David Hardy , Ørsted Group EVP and CEO Americas.
Once in operation, the project will be supported by US-built crew transfer vessels (CTV) and eventually by America’s first offshore wind service operations vessel (SOV) , Edison Chouest Offshore’s ECO Edison .