Decades after Europe, turning blades send first commercial wind power onto US grid

NEW LONDON, Conn. — Off the coast of eastern Long Island, an 800-foot turbine has begun sending electricity to the U.S. grid from what will be the nation's first commercial offshore wind farm.

It's a milestone years in the making and at the same time modest progress in what experts say must be a major build-out of this kind of clean electricity to tackle climate change.

Danish wind energy developer Ørsted and utility Eversource on Wednesday announced first electricity from a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind, 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York. It will be New York's first offshore wind farm.

Ørsted and Eversource planned to meet with New York officials on Wednesday to celebrate this “first power” milestone in East Hampton, New York, where the wind farm will be connected to the onshore electricity grid. They say this achievement lays a foundation for other major U.S. offshore wind farms to follow.

So far, two of the 11 megawatt turbines are operational. The second is being tested and can then also produce electricity. When the other 10 are up and running and South Fork opens early next year, it will be able to generate 132 megawatts of offshore wind energy to power more than 70,000 homes.

The first energy announcement is “an incredible moment in America's clean energy story,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the nonprofit Turn Forward, which advocates for offshore wind energy. She said South Fork will be a source of clean, reliable, domestically produced energy.

“This is just the beginning of what offshore wind energy can do,” she said in a statement.

Large offshore wind farms have been producing electricity in Europe for thirty years, and more recently in Asia. The first U.S. offshore wind farm would be a project off the coast of Massachusetts known as Cape Wind. The application was submitted to the federal government in 2001. This failed after years of local resistance and lawsuits.

In 2016, turbines began taking out Block Island in Rhode Island. But with only five of them, it is not a commercial-scale wind farm.

There are currently two commercial offshore wind farms under construction in the United States, South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind. Vineyard Wind will be a wind farm with 62 turbines, 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. It has not yet started generating power, the developer said Monday. They first install and test five turbines.

At State Pier in New London, Connecticut, the blades and massive tower sections for South Fork are lined up, ready to leave the harbor for the sea, where they will be built in the coming weeks. The nacelles that house the generator for each wind turbine are also there.

On Monday, a ship with three blades and a nacelle for the third turbine left the port. As Eversource's Jeff Martin looked on, he said it was a “joy” to see the industry in the United States finally move from concept to reality to help reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels.

“We are finally taking this step to catch up with the rest of the world and do our part to collectively tackle climate change,” said Martin, director of business development at Eversource for the offshore wind group.

Large, ocean-based wind farms are a linchpin in government plans to transition to renewable energy in populous East Coast states with limited land for wind turbines or solar panels. The Biden administration wants to power 10 million homes offshore by 2030 and create a carbon-free electricity grid five years later.

But the sector has fallen on hard times recently. Ørsted announced it is canceling two major offshore wind projects in New Jersey due to supply chain issues, higher interest rates and failure to obtain the amount of tax credits the company wanted. Developers in New England have also recently canceled power connections because their projects were no longer financially viable. The series of setbacks for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry is putting clean energy goals at risk.

However, other projects are progressing. Ørsted, together with Eversource, continues the construction of Revolution Wind, the first large-scale offshore wind farm in Rhode Island and Connecticut. The 704 megawatt project will power approximately 400,000 households. Tower sections, blades and nacelles are expected to arrive in New London as soon as this spring.

South Fork and Revolution Wind are a “bright spot for a challenged industry,” said David Hardy, group executive vice president and CEO Americas at Ørsted.

“If we show that we can build this project and build Revolution, people will realize the real opportunity of offshore wind,” he said.

___

The Associated Press' climate and environmental reporting receives support from several private foundations. View more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.