Offshore wind developer Deepwater Wind plans to construct the Deepwater Wind Energy Center (DWEC), what the company calls the first of second generation offshore wind farms in the United States.
At a capacity of approximately 1,000 MW and with the ability to act as a regional offshore wind energy center serving multiple states, DWEC is an important step in moving toward a U.S.-based, clean-energy future. DWEC will be sited in the deep ocean waters of southern Rhode Island Sound, where it will be barely visible from the shore. Construction is planned to begin in 2014, with the first wind turbines in operation by the end of 2015.
“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 the offshore projects announced to date,” said Deepwater Wind CEO William M. Moore. “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.”
With as many as 200 wind turbines, the company says the wind farm will be the largest offshore farm ever planned in the United
States. Because of the economies of scale gained by building a large facility and also because of the continuing maturity of the offshore wind industry, DWEC’s power price will also be lower than earlier offshore wind projects proposed in the U.S. DWEC will demonstrate that as the offshore wind industry continues to mature, its energy prices will become increasingly competitive with plants that burn fossil fuels – but without the environmental problems that plague fossil fuel plants.
Deepwater Wind recently filed an unsolicited nomination to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) to lease the ocean site where it plans to locate DWEC. BOEMRE is currently reviewing Deepwater Wind’s lease request in consultation with taskforces organized at the state level in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Deepwater Wind’s submission will be subject to federal and state review, and if a lease is awarded, the project will be subject to extensive permitting reviews and public comment opportunities.
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.
For the entire wind farm, most of the turbines will be located 20 – 25 miles from shore. No turbine will be located any closer than 13.8 miles from inhabited land, with only a few turbines located at that distance. At these distances, the wind farm will be barely visible from the shore and the project site can take advantage of the stronger winds found in the open ocean.
DWEC is the utility-scale offshore wind farm referred to in the Joint Development Agreement between Deepwater Wind and Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind has been identified as the preferred developer of offshore wind at the proposed project area, which is within the Area of Mutual Interest identified by the governors of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The DWEC site is also within the Ocean Special Area Management Plan (SAMP) area studied by the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). Through the leadership of the CRMC, the Ocean SAMP is recognized as a national model of ocean planning and is expected to accelerate the permitting of projects in Rhode Island sites by several years.
Deepwater Wind www.dwwind.com
Filed Under: Offshore wind, Projects
