Revolution Wind has successfully completed installation of the project’s first offshore wind turbine, a milestone for Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first large-scale offshore wind farm and the first multi-state offshore wind farm in the nation.
Ørsted and Eversource’s Revolution Wind is set to utilize 65 Siemens Gamesa turbines, the same 11 MW turbine model used at the recently completed South Fork Wind. Once in operation, Revolution Wind will have the capacity to generate 400 MW for Rhode Island and 304 MW for Connecticut.
“Seeing the first turbine rise above the water at Revolution Wind is another unforgettable moment for this new American energy industry we’re building together,” says David Hardy, group EVP and CEO Americas at Ørsted.
“Revolution Wind is bringing local union jobs and economic development to Rhode Island and Connecticut, and it will deliver clean offshore wind power to hundreds of thousands of homes in the region. We thank our state and federal partners, our hard-working construction, marine and safety teams, and our local labor, port and supply chain partners, as we continue building this historic project.”
The construction phase includes installing the wind farm’s foundations, two offshore substations, inter-array and export cables and wind turbines.
Offshore construction crews continue to install the foundations for the turbines, with the company saying three-quarters of the foundations are now in place.
Three New England ports are playing central roles in building Revolution Wind:
- State Pier in New London, Conn., is serving as the staging and marshaling port for the project, where the turbines are being assembled.
- In Providence, crews are handling loadout of the advanced foundation components, which were built by local union workers at Ørsted and Eversource’s construction hub at ProvPort.
- The ECO EDISON, the first-ever American-built, owned and crewed offshore wind service operations vessel, is based out of ProvPort during Revolution Wind’s construction.
Revolution Wind’s crew helicopters and Rhode Island-built crew transfer vessels are based out of that state’s Quonset Point. Onshore construction continues in North Kingstown, R.I., on the project’s transmission system.
The Revolution Wind project site, roughly 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32 miles southeast of the Connecticut coast, is adjacent to Ørsted and Eversource’s South Fork Wind, America’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm. Ørsted recently marked the groundbreaking for another neighboring project, Sunrise Wind.