pwr_september-2024 - 30

TOP PLANT
A Positive Turn for
U.S. Offshore Wind
Courtesy: South Fork Wind
South Fork Wind, the first commercial-scale offshore wind project to come online in
the U.S., and New York's first offshore wind farm, marks a milestone for the industry's
future in America.
Darrell Proctor
T
he U.S. offshore wind industry has
moved in fits and starts. Delays
caused by regulatory agencies,
and a changing political climate, have
slowed development of some projects
and brought uncertainty to the industry
as a whole.
That's why offshore wind proponents,
and clean energy advocates, agree that
success stories should be celebrated.
Such is the case with South Fork Wind,
which earlier this year became the first
U.S. commercial-scale offshore wind
project to come online. It's a milestone
for U.S. offshore wind and a major step
forward for the future of such projects
off American shores, making it worthy of
recognition as a POWER Top Plant.
" South Fork Wind marks the beginning
of a new era in American offshore
wind-the first commercial-scale offshore
wind farm in U.S. history. The
project set a new standard for offshore
wind energy generation, with its 12
turbines providing enough clean energy
to power roughly 70,000 New York
homes, " said Brennan Guldner, asset
manager of South Fork Wind. " Construction
of South Fork Wind involved
over 170 contracts with suppliers across
19 states, catalyzing nearly $1 billion in
private investment and jump-starting a
nationwide offshore wind supply chain.
South Fork Wind is proof of the significant
environmental and economic benefits
of commercial-scale offshore wind
and is a model for other large projects
currently in development, including the
30
Revolution Wind project in Rhode Island
and Connecticut, and the Sunrise Wind
project in New York. "
Sited Off the U.S. Northeast Coast
South Fork, a 132-MW installation that
came online in March of this year, is located
about 19 miles southeast of Block
Island, Rhode Island-home to the first
U.S. offshore wind farm, a small, 30MW
installation that has operated since
December 2016. South Fork is about 35
miles east of Montauk Point, New York,
in waters ranging from 108 to 135 feet
deep. An underwater transmission line
connects the project to the local power
grid in East Hampton, New York.
The project was built as a joint venture
between Ørsted and Eversource
Energy, though Eversource is in the
process of finalizing the sale of its
stake to Global Infrastructure Partners,
a New York City-based investment fund.
South Fork Wind features a dozen Siemens
Gamesa (SG) 11.0-200 DD wind
turbines, installed in a grid and spaced
just more than one mile apart. The SG
turbines, each with 11 MW of generation
capacity, feature 656-feet-diameter
rotors and 318-feet-long blades, with a
swept area of 337,987 ft2.
The turbines have direct drive technology
and use a permanent magnet
generator. Each turbine also is
equipped with a high wind ride-through,
or HWRT, system that can shut down
the turbine to help protect components
when wind speeds are higher than 82
feet per second.
www.powermag.com
" Eversource is committed to helping
lead our country's clean energy transition
by working closely with renewable
energy developers to interconnect
their projects to our transmission system,
as well as ensuring the electric
grid is resilient and can handle the
increase in power demand driven by
electrification, " said Bill Quinlan, president
of
Transmission and Offshore
Wind Projects at Eversource Energy.
" We're already putting Americans to
work building the onshore infrastructure
that brings offshore wind energy
to our homes and businesses. South
Fork Wind was made possible by hundreds
of union workers and contractors
building the transmission system and
onshore substation, as well as millions
in investments in Rhode Island's ProvPort
and Connecticut's State Pier. This
project serves as a model for our work
across the region and we are already
capitalizing on these investments and
the region's talented workforce on additional
projects currently in development,
such as the Cape Cod Solution
multi-phase transmission program to
increase the reliability of the Cape's
transmission system and interconnect
offshore wind. "
Completion of construction of all 12
turbines of the wind farm was announced
on March 14 of this year. New York Gov.
Kathy Hochul, along with Interior Secretary
Deb Haaland and other dignitaries,
highlighted the historic significance
of the wind farm's delivery of power to
Long Island and the Rockaways.
POWER | September 2024
http://www.powermag.com
pwr_september-2024

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