Deepwater Wind has officially submitted its plans to the US government for the construction of a 1000 MW offshore wind farm off the east coast of the USA.
The Deepwater Wind Energy Center (DWEC) will be the first ‘second generation’ offshore wind farm in the USA and will be sited in the deep ocean waters of Rhode Island Sound. It could be operational by 2016 or 2017, says Deepwater.
The company has also signed an agreement with Siemens Energy to use Siemens’ latest offshore wind turbine in the Block Island Wind Farm, a 30 MW facility located 5 km southeast of Block Island, RI.
DWEC will consist of around 200 wind turbines and its scale will enable it to demonstrate how the offshore wind sector has matured in terms of both technology and costs, says Deepwater.
Deepwater Wind is also developing a regional offshore transmission network, the New England-Long Island Interconnector (NELI), connecting DWEC to southern New England and eastern Long Island. NELI will allow the wind farm to send power to multiple states in the region.
Deepwater Wind plans to market power from DWEC to several states, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut.
“The Deepwater Wind Energy Center is poised to be the first regional offshore wind energy centre in the United States with a wind farm and a transmission system serving multiple markets,” said William M. Moore, Deepwater Wind CEO. “This ‘second generation’ of offshore wind farms will be larger and farther from shore, and will produce lower priced power, using more advanced technology than any of the offshore projects announced to date.”
The Block Island Wind Farm is on target to be the first offshore wind farm built in North America. Siemens will supply five of its new 6.0 MW direct drive turbines for the project, which is scheduled to be in the construction phase in 2013 or 2014.
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