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Block Island's Offshore Wind Turbines

Deepwater Wind is almost ready to begin producing energy

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Deepwater Wind is almost ready to begin producing energy from the country’s first offshore wind farm. Just a few miles south of Block Island’s Southeast Lighthouse, their five wind turbines are a monumental achievement of design, construction and carbon reduction.

Targeted to begin energy production this month, they have potential to power 17,000 houses. The energy cable will carry electrons first to the island’s power company, where they share a substation with National Grid. Energy not used by islanders will travel by cable to the mainland via Narragansett’s Scarborough Beach and into South Kingstown for regional distribution.

Block Island Wind Farm Manager, Bryan Wilson, says the turbines were “designed with very robust technology, similar to designs in the North Sea.” The base structures, called jackets, have been coated with a hyperphobic paint to inhibit ice formation and are clearly marked with no trespassing signs. “I would strongly discourage people from tying up to them,” Bryan added, “With wave action it’s almost like being inside a washing machine. You’re going to lose in an agitated sea state.” For emergency situations, the jackets are equipped with two lower ladder sections, left open as areas of refuge for mariners in distress.


“Getting all five turbines assembled in 80 days was remarkable,” Bryan says. This project represents a massive undertaking in both engineering and construction but anticipating a projected working life span of 20 years, Deepwater Wind has reserved sufficient funding for their dismantling.

Bryan works with Michael Ernst and Robbie Gilpin as an island response team. “We are hands on first responders,” he said. Together they visit the turbines regularly and have watched algae coat the jackets almost immediately along with a four to six inch set of mussels and a regular presence of sea bass, stripers and even the occasional hammerhead shark. In a show of local entrepreneurial spirit, several charter captains have offered tourists trips to view the structures and fish around them. As the wind blows and electrons begin to flow from Block Island Sound, there is no doubt the future of energy production has been forever changed. 

DWWind.com

wind turbines, energy, wind energy, deepwater wind, block island, southeast lighthouse, national grid, bryan wilson, block island wind farm, robbie gilpin, michael ernst, block island sound

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