NEW SHOREHAM – Deepwater Wind, the New Jersey company chosen by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri to build a $1.5 billion wind farm in federal waters off Rhode Island, is quickly moving ahead with work on a smaller project off Block Island.

The governor announced last September that Deepwater planned to build a 100-turbine wind farm off Rhode Island’s coast capable of generating 385 megawatts of electricity, or roughly 15 percent of the state’s electricity consumption. Federal and state regulators are still finalizing rules that will clear the path for the project.

In addition, a formal agreement the state signed in January called for Deepwater to build a 20-megawatt wind farm, consisting of six to eight turbines, to be located in state waters three miles off Block Island. State officials hope the smaller wind farm would reduce the island’s high electricity costs.

In February, Deepwater installed a 10-foot-high avian radar unit at Block Island’s Southeast Lighthouse to study bird migration routes, bird and bat flight patterns and flight heights. The company has also placed bat-monitoring equipment on a municipal communications tower.

The next step will be more visible. The New Shoreham Town Council recently voted to issue a permit giving Deepwater permission to put up a 180-foot-tall meteorological tower at the entrance to the Great Salt Pond to measure wind speeds.

“What it’s going to allow us to do is create an accurate set of data that’s going to really help with our permitting requirements for this project,” said Jon Duffy, president of the Providence marketing firm Duffy & Shanley, which is representing Deepwater Wind.

He stressed that the large metal tower is temporary, and will be taken down within 12 to 24 months.

Thus far, Duffy said the town council has been “very cooperative” with Deepwater’s efforts to begin preliminary research work for the wind farms.

The entire wind farm project “should have very minimal impact on Block Island, except for their electricity bills,” Duffy added, noting that the wind turbines will be staged at Quonset Point.

Deepwater – which is principally backed by the hedge fund D.E. Shaw & Co. – is bearing the cost of the research.

In an interview with PBN last October, Carcieri explained his reasons for supporting the wind farm.

“We don’t have oil,” the governor said. “We don’t have natural gas. We don’t have large areas on land where we could then build wind farms. Our only option, frankly, that we can control – absent nuclear, something that’s pretty dramatic – is wind, and it’s offshore wind.”

Separately, Deepwater CEO Chris Wissemann, who was in Rhode Island conferring with state leaders earlier this month, hailed a tentative agreement last week between two federal agencies – the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – that should clear the path for offshore energy developments. Wissemann described the deal to end the two agencies’ turf battle as “long overdue.”

Nine U.S. senators, including Rhode Island’s Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, sent a letter on March 12 to the new interior secretary, Ken Salazar, asking him to resolve the issue “without further delay.”