Deepwater Wind has completed installation of the five Haliade wind turbines that will power the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm, located roughly three miles off the coast of Block Island, R.I.
The wind farm will now undergo a series of commissioning tests – a process that will culminate in the starting of power production sometime in “late October or early November,” notes Jeff Grybowski, CEO of Deepwater Wind.
The turbine installation capped off an 18-week construction period that began in late November – a process that comprised approximately 200 workers (100 of them local) and a dozen construction and transport barges, tugboats, crew ships and monitoring vessels.
Installation of the four inter-array cables connecting the five wind turbine foundations and the export cable connecting the wind farm to a new substation on Block Island was completed during the summer.
When completed, the Block Island Wind Farm will be the first offshore wind farm in the U.S.
