First U.S. Ocean Wind Farm to be Built off Rhode Island
Filed Under: Environmental News on December 13, 2009
A company called Deepwater Wind acquired the contract from Rhode Island to sell them power from a deep water wind farm off their shore. This could eventually grow to supply 15% of the state’s electrical needs. Of course, Rhode Island is small, but still, that’s a not too shabby.
The 20-year power purchase agreement will involve up to 8 wind turbines situated off shore and producing a total of 28 megawatts of power. Rhode Island set a 20% renewable resource-based electricity goal to be reached by 2015. This could be a big part of that.
Another offshore wind project is much larger, at 130 turbines for neighboring state Massachusetts. Critics are protesting the $1 billion cost, however, who point out that on-shore wind turbines can come at almost half the cost.
What those critics seem to be missing is that land is at a premium in some eastern states and offshore wind actually produces more power per turbine over the long run because of steadier wind currents.
For the first year of the Deepwater project, Rhode Island will purchase power at 24.4 cents per kilowatt hour, ten cents more than their current purhcase. As time goes on and the turbines increase, however, this rate will drop and Deepwater expects to be around the 15-17 cent/kwh by 2015 when the final turbine is in place.
The company plans to offer adjacent states the same deal over time, building a larger and larger wind farm to supply much of the northeast. The project itself is entirely privately funded with the contract for power purchase being the only government involvement outside of permits.
Very cool!
