Texas company first to make offshore substation for LI wind farm

A Texas company will manufacture an offshore substation for the South Fork Wind Farm that will deliver power to the Hamptons, the first time a U.S. company will have constructed such a component for the burgeoning American industry, the developers said.

Kiewit Offshore Services will fabricate the 1,500-ton substation, which will send energy from the 12-turbine facility in the waters off Rhode Island/Massachusetts to East Hampton for use on the grid. The 132-megawatt project will cost just over $2 billion to build, and add around $1.50 a month to average customers’ bills.

The substation will be built at Kiewit’s Ingleside, Texas, facility and shipped to the Northeast when complete. The wind farm was awarded by LIPA in 2017 to help address the growing demand for power on the South Fork. At the same time, LIPA approved a separate $513 million transmission upgrade project to fortify the East End grid that will largely resolve the power shortage.

Kiewet will begin construction of the substation in November, and complete the work by spring 2023, Orsted said. Most components for wind farms come from Europe, where the biggest developers are based.

Meanwhile, South Fork Wind Developer Orsted said maintenance and repair of its Block Island Wind Farm, the nation’s first, has been delayed by weather from Tropical Storm Henri. Four of five turbines were being checked for "stress lines," Orsted said, though the company has declined to elaborate on the problem, including discuss what it means.

"Ahead of Tropical Storm Henri, we took our crew vessel Atlantic Pioneer and our crew members off the water to ride out the storm on the mainland," Orsted spokeswoman Meaghan Wims said in prepared remarks. "The Block Island Wind Farm fared well throughout the storm. We expect to resume our scheduled maintenance and repair work in the next day or two, and complete that work in the next few weeks as scheduled."

Summer is the peak time for energy on Block Island, but the community is also served by a cable to the mainland so the turbines’ problems won’t impact power availability. Still, the cable itself is due to be taken offline, perhaps in the winter, to bury it deeper after it previously became exposed.

Separately on Wednesday, a Massachusetts citizens group known as Nantucket Residents Against Turbines sued the federal government and its offshore wind-related agencies and Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland, over their approval of the Vineyard Wind project off the state’s coast.

The suit claims federal agencies’ environmental reviews "failed to take the requisite hard look" at the project’s impact on whales and other marine mammals, fish, sea turtles, birds and other environmental considerations, and seeks an injunction to halt the federal agencies from issuing needed permits for the project until "adequate" studies are completed. Vineyard Wind is scheduled to be the first large-scale wind farm in the nation.

Spokespersons for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which manages the projects and the environmental reviews, and Vineyard Wind declined to comment on the litigation.

"It appears this lawsuit is being brought by residents motivated by aesthetic concerns as much as anything alleged in their complaint," said Tom Vinson, vice president of federal regulatory affairs for the American Clean Power, an industry group of which Vineyard Wind is a member. Vineyard Wind is not listed as a defendant in the suit.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.