America’s first offshore wind farm may soon be generating electricity off the coast of Rhode Island.Deepwater Wind’s Block Island Wind Farm received more than $290 million in project financing, enough to get the five wind turbines in business by their target date of late 2016.
The wind farm is already under construction, with the steel jacket foundations for the windmills being fabricated by Gulf Island Fabrication Inc. of Houma, La.
Rhode Island-based Specialty Diving Services is expected to begin additional fabrication on some components of the foundation at Quonset, R.I. in the next few weeks.
The five Haliade 150 6 MW wind turbines will be supplied by Alstom, located in Denmark. All 15 blades have already been completed. The foundations are scheduled to be installed this summer.
When completed, Deepwater Wind said, the wind farm will generate over 125,000 megawatt hours annually. That power will be sent to the mainland electric grid, making landfall in Naragansett.
