Deepwater installs ‘steel jacket’ off B.I.

NEW SHOREHAM – Deepwater Wind LLC reached a milestone in July after successfully setting a 400-ton wind turbine frame – or “steel jacket” – into the seabed approximately three miles off the coast of Block Island.

The installation marks the first of five foundations to be set that would eventually support the company’s five-turbine, 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm project. The wind farm is scheduled to come online in the fourth quarter of 2016, becoming the country’s first offshore wind farm. Deepwater Wind leaders and offshore-wind advocates hope the project will prove the model in the United States and pave the way for more projects to fill out the fledgling industry.

The Block Island project, if successful, would generate about 125,000 megawatt hours annually, which is enough to power nearly 90 percent of Block Island’s electricity demand and about 1 percent of Rhode Island’s.

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