The New York Power Authority on Wednesday said it would apply with federal regulators for a lease to build one of the nations first offshore wind power projects in the Atlantic Ocean, off Long Island.
The wind group wants to build a 350-megawatt to 700-MW wind farm by 2016, the power authority, which would hold the lease, said in a release.
The agency said the proposed wind farm would help the city and state meet tough renewable energy goals and reduce carbon emissions in its fight against global warming, but could not say how much the project would cost.
The company estimated the cost to upgrade the transmission system to support a wind farm alone would cost about $415 million for a 350-MW project, or $821 million for a 700-MW project, N.Y.P.A. spokeswoman Connie Cullen told Reuters in an email.
There are currently no offshore wind farms in the United States in part because it costs about twice as much to build offshore than on land. There are however several United States offshore wind farms under development.
The Long Island Power Authority, one of the members of the wind group, killed plans to build a 140-MW offshore wind farm in 2007 because the project’s cost estimates soared to about $811 million from an initial bid of about $356 million.
Industry sources estimate it would cost about $4 million per megawatt to build wind turbines offshore versus less than $2 million-a-megawatt on shore.
In addition to the two state-owned power companies, the wind group includes New York City’s power company Consolidated Edison Inc., the City of New York and other state and city government agencies.
N.Y.P.A. said it will apply with the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, formerly known as the Minerals Management Service, for a 25-year lease on 64,500 acres of land beneath the Atlantic Ocean about 13 miles to 15 miles off the Long Island coast.
Offshore property within the first three miles of the coast falls within a state’s jurisdiction. Federal jurisdiction extends from three miles to 200 miles offshore. The bureau is the one within the U.S. Department of Interior responsible for granting leases for offshore facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf.
N.Y.P.A. said the wind group would negotiate with the bureau over annual rent for the project during development and construction, expected to be about $3 an acre, or about $200,000 a year. Once the project is operating, the power agency said the bureau would receive a portion of the revenue generated from energy sales as payment for the lease.
