Rhode Island could be home to the largest offshore wind power project in the United States if federal and public approval is granted to construct the 1-gigawatt Deepwater Wind Energy Center.
Project developer Deepwater Wind will build the offshore wind facility in the deep ocean waters of southern Rhode Island Sound, around 20 miles to 25 miles away from the shore. The distance will allow the facility to harness stronger winds while keeping away from public view.
The wind center will use up to 200 wind turbines, producing enough electricity to power approximately 350,000 homes and displacing over 1.7 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, the equivalent of 40 million barrels of foreign oil imports.
Construction is expected to begin in 2014, with the initial operation to start by the end of 2015.
Deepwater Wind also plans to develop the New England-Long Island Interconnector, a regional offshore transmission network, to link the offshore wind center to southern New England and eastern Long Island. This will allow electricity from the wind farm to power multiple states in the region, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Connecticut.
Deepwater Wind already filed an unsolicited nomination to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement to lease the potential project site in the ocean. The bureau is currently reviewing the help of other state-level departments in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Once the lease is awarded, the project will undergo permitting review and public comment opportunities.
The Deepwater Wind Energy Center is said to be the first of the second generation of offshore wind farms in the United States. These wind farms will be larger and farther from shore and will use more advanced technology than current offshore wind ventures, thus producing lower priced power.
“Second generation utility-scale wind farms like D.W.E.C. can significantly reduce our need to burn fossil fuels, improve local air quality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions – problems that are especially acute in the densely-populated Northeast,” said William Moore, chief executive of Deepwater Wind.
Deepwater Wind estimated the cost of the wind project will be lower than other offshore wind project proposals in the United States due the economies of scale gained by constructing a large facility and the continued maturity of the offshore wind industry.
“We expect the offshore wind industry in the United States to follow the European experience, where a more mature industry is building larger projects farther from shore,” Mr. Moore added.
