Prysmian resumes cable laying at first US large-scale offshore wind farm - Offshore Energy
Prysmian resumes cable laying at first US large-scale offshore wind farm - Offshore Energy
Prysmian resumes cable laying at first US large-scale offshore wind farm
Prysmian’s cable-laying barge Ulisse has resumed cable laying operations at the first U.S. large-scale offshore wind project, located off the coast of Massachusetts.
According to the project’s latest mariner update, cable laying operations of the mid-section cable for the Vineyard Wind 1 project were set to kick off on or about 9 April and continue through July, weather depending.
The location of the activities starts just offshore the Cape Poge area, along the cable corridor down Muskeget Channel to the WDA.
Prysmian’s Cable Enterprise began installing the offshore part of the project’s link to the grid on land after a pre-lay grapnel run in October 2022.
In November, the vessel installed the two offshore sections of about 12 kilometers each, with Ulisse installing the first nearshore section (27 kilometers).
Located approximately 24 kilometers off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind 1 will feature 62 GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines.
Once fully operational, the 800 MW wind farm will generate enough electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The project is being built by Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.