The Long Island Power Authority will decide on Jan. 25 whether to approve a 90-MW wind farm 30 miles off the coast of Montauk. The wind farm is the maiden project of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) proposal to build 2.4 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
Jeffrey Grybowski, CEO of project developer Deepwater Wind, Providence, R.I., says negotiations are complete. An authority spokesman confirmed the late January vote but would not comment further. The planned project “is the cleanest, cheapest and most supported new source of energy for the South Fork, and we remain confident it will become a major part of New York’s clean-energy future,” Grybowski says. His firm completed the first U.S. offshore wind farm in Rhode Island last year (see p. 40).
Cuomo called for approval of the project, which he termed least expensive for both renewable and conventional generation to meet regional energy needs. It is the first phase in developing a federal lease that can support more than 1,000 MW of wind power, he said. A second offshore site would be off Rockaway Peninsula, in Queens, N.Y. Statoil Wind US, a unit of the Norwegian oil giant, won a federal auction in December to develop 79,000 acres. Cuomo noted “robust market interest” for wind projects off New York’s coast. Statoil paid $42.5 million for the lease. The area could accommodate, in phases, more than 1 GW of offshore wind, says Irene Rummelhoff, vice president.
By the end of 2017, the state aims to complete a plan to develop 2.4 GW of offshore wind to meet 50% of state power needs with renewable sources by 2030. Cuomo also aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 40%. Further, he released plans for 11 new large-scale renewable-energy projects, leveraging nearly $1 billion in private-sector investment, to help meet the goals. They include two onshore wind farms, a utility-scale solar farm, seven hydro projects and a fuel cell to produce 260 MW of power.
