Empire Wind

Empire Wind
Map
CountryUnited States
LocationOCS-A 0512 Offshore New York
(Hudson North)[1]
Coordinates40°19′45″N 73°30′28″W / 40.329226°N 73.507861°W / 40.329226; -73.507861
StatusProposed
Wind farm
TypeOffshore
Distance from shore15 miles (24 km)
Power generation
Make and modelVestas 138 V236-15MW
Nameplate capacity2.1 GW
External links
WebsiteEmpire Wind
[edit on Wikidata]

Empire Wind is a proposed utility-scale offshore wind farm on the Outer Continental Shelf Offshore New York.[2] It will be located in Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) lease area OCS-A 0512 (known as Hudson North)[3][4] in the New York Bight about 15 miles (24 km) south of Jones Beach, Long Island.[5][6]

The first phase of the project, Empire Wind 1, is expected to have a 816MW nameplate capacity generated by 60-80 wind turbines (each with an installed capacity of more than 15 MW[7]). The second part of the project, Empire Wind 2, was cancelled due to "rising inflation, higher borrowing costs, and supply chain issues.".[8] It was expected to generate 1,284 MW for a total of 2.1 GW of power,[9] which was projected to power over 1,000,000 homes in New York.[9] Empire Wind 1 was expected to come on line in late 2024,[10][11] but postponed to late 2026.[12] NYSERDA lists the expected commercial operation date of Empire Wind 1 as 2027.[13]

Background

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On September 8, 2011, the New York Power Authority, Long Island Power Authority, and Con Edison (the Offshore Wind Collaborative) filed a request with BOEM to issue a commercial lease on the outer continental shelf for the development of the Long Island - New York City Offshore Wind Project. This project would be located in the Atlantic Ocean off approximately 15-30 nautical miles off Nassau County in a long 65,000-acre wedge-shaped area between shipping channels, directionally aligned southwest of Rockaway Peninsula.[14] The proposed project would have consisted of 138 offshore turbines,[7] with a total nameplate generating capacity of 2,100MW.[9] Given the lengthy permitting process, the Collaborative's proposed project would not be operational until 2018 at the earliest. On January 4, 2013, BOEM issued a Request for Interest (Docket ID: BOEM-2012-0083) to determine whether other parties were interested in developing the same area.[15]

Development

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The project won a competitive procurement for offshore wind renewable energy credits (ORECs) from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA)[3][16] and is being developed by Equinor and BP, the latter of which acquired a 50% stake in the project in January 2021.[17]

Aker Solutions is one of the companies that has been contracted for a front-end engineering and design (FEED) to study the design and delivery of concrete foundations for the wind turbine.[18] The project will support the development of a large offshore wind assembly port located at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Sunset Park, Brooklyn[19] and wind-turbine tower manufacturing at the Port of Albany–Rensselaer.[20][21]

NYISO issued a facilities study on June 14, 2021, requiring the project to be grid connected by June 14, 2025. Empire posted $42.6 million to secure that interconnection with Consolidated Edison. The project includes substations onshore and offshore, connected by 46 miles of cabling. The cables will be supplied by a new factory built by Nexans in Charleston, South Carolina.[22]

The permission process and large project timeline is longer than the 4 years between NYISO study and first power delivery, and Empire requested an extension to the timeline.[12] Empire prefers the Vestas V236-15 MW wind turbine for the project.[23][24]

In March 2022, GE Bond was awarded a contract to build an onshore substation for Empire Wind I in Sunset Park Brooklyn.[25] They will also produce interconnection cables for the Brooklyn point of interconnection.[26] The E. F. Barrett Power Station at Island Park, Long Island is planned to serve as the interconnection point to the power grid, after local politicians lobbied for that connection instead of the originally planned Gowanus Substation in Queens.[27]

In September 2022, Empire Wind announced the continuation of a whale tracking program that began in 2019 with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to track whales in lease area through 2028.[28] This will cover the entire pre-construction, construction, and post-construction phases of the project. The near real time data is available for the public at the New York Aquarium.[29]

Wind farm Offshore BOEM wind energy lease area States Coordinates Capacity
(MW) 		Completion year Turbines Developer/Utility Regulatory agency Refs
Empire Wind 1 Offshore New York
OCS-A 0512
(Hudson North)[1]		 13 nautical miles 15 miles (24 km) south of Jones Beach Island, Long Island (NY) at New York Bight 79,350 acres (32,110 ha) NY 2,100 2026 138 Equinor
BP		 NYSERDA [3]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Lease OCS-A 0512; Bureau of Ocean Energy Management". www.boem.gov.
  2. ^ "Empire Wind - 4C Offshore". www.4coffshore.com.
  3. ^ a b c "New York's Offshore Wind Projects". NYSERDA.
  4. ^ "New York Bight; Bureau of Ocean Energy Management". www.boem.gov.
  5. ^ "BOEM New York Bight lease area map".
  6. ^ Simulation Offers First Look At Long Islanders' View Of Empire Wind Project, retrieved 2022-12-16
  7. ^ a b "Technology". Empire Wind. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  8. ^ "Equinor, BP cancel contract to sell offshore wind power to New York". Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  9. ^ a b c "Project". Empire Wind. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  10. ^ "StackPath". www.tdworld.com.
  11. ^ "Empire Wind Project, Offshore New York, USA". www.power-technology.com.
  12. ^ a b Van Voorhis, Scott (15 October 2021). "Empire Wind pushes opening of New York's first offshore wind farm to 2026". Utility Dive. Archived from the original on 15 October 2021.
  13. ^ "New York's Offshore Wind Projects". NYSERDA. Retrieved 2024-02-19.
  14. ^ "Home". Empire Wind. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  15. ^ "New York Activities | Bureau of Ocean Energy Management". www.boem.gov.
  16. ^ Gheorghiu, Iulia (July 19, 2019). "New York awards record 1,700 MW offshore wind contracts". Utility Dive.
  17. ^ Ellichipuram, Umesh (February 1, 2021). "BP completes stake acquisition in offshore wind farms from Equinor". www.power-technology.com.
  18. ^ "Aker Solutions Wins FEED Contract for Empire Wind Project in the U.S." Aker Solutions.
  19. ^ "US offshore wind: tapping an underused resource", FT Energy Source, 2022-11-07, retrieved 2022-12-16
  20. ^ ""Hundreds of Jobs" - Equinor Picks Port of Albany for Offshore Wind Tower Making Facility". Offshore Engineer Magazine. November 13, 2020.
  21. ^ ""Empire Wind" News". www.oedigital.com.
  22. ^ Skopljak, Nadja (22 October 2021). "Nexans Opening First US Subsea Cable Plant in November". Offshore Wind. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021.
  23. ^ "Vestas selected as preferred supplier for the 2.1 GW Empire Wind 1 and Empire Wind 2 offshore wind projects in the USA". www.vestas.com. Retrieved 2022-12-16.
  24. ^ Blenkey, Nick (18 October 2021). "Empire Offshore Wind selects giant 15 MW Vestas turbines for two NY wind farms". Marine Log. Archived from the original on 18 October 2021.
  25. ^ "GE-BOND consortium awarded landmark contract to build high-voltage electrical systems for Empire Offshore Wind 1 in New York | GE News". www.ge.com. Retrieved 2022-12-20.
  26. ^ Durakovic, Adnan (2022-03-22). "GE-BOND Consortium to Build High-Voltage Electrical Systems for Empire Wind 1". Offshore Wind. Retrieved 2022-12-20.
  27. ^ Smollins, Mike (2021-01-21). "Barrett plant in Island Park key to offshore wind farm". Herald Community Newspapers. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
  28. ^ "Empire Wind and WCS Announce Extension of Historic Near Real-Time Acoustic Marine Monitoring Project In New York Bight". Empire Wind. 2022-09-07. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  29. ^ "Whales of New York > Near Real-time Acoustics". whalesofnewyork.wcs.org. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
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