Deepwater Wind

Alstom Signs Contract with Deepwater Wind to Supply the Haliade' 150-6 MW Turbine

Alstom will supply 5 Haliade' 150-6 MW offshore wind turbines for Deepwater Wind's 30-MW Block Island Wind Farm located off the coast of Rhode Island. Alstom will manufacture the turbines and will provide 15 years of operation and maintenance support. The project is aligned with The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's "Smart from the Start" offshore wind program, which aims to accelerate the development of clean, renewable offshore wind along the eastern seaboard of the U.S.

Treading Water

With no guidance yet from FERC, Atlantic Wind is forced to wait.

Touted as the nation’s first-ever “offshore transmission highway,” the proposed Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) high-voltage power line in theory could foster dozens of wind farms in shallow offshore costal waters up and down the mid-Atlantic seaboard — but only if federal regulators can get buy-in for new transmission planning rules that give precedence to large, macro projects aimed at boosting renewable energy. Otherwise, the grid project might never pass muster with the engineers charged with OK’ing new power lines, since the AWC is probably not needed to maintain reliability, and likely would not make electricity rates any cheaper for East Coast ratepayers. Should wind energy developers start with massive grid projects to attract clusters of wind turbines, or should the wind farms come first?