The Connecticut Port Authority is considering what the future of the State Pier may be if the Revolution Wind energy project is permanently shut down.
The Trump administration on Aug. 22 ordered a halt to construction of Revolution Wind, which is Connecticut’s only active wind project.
The pier in New London is the main staging area for the offshore project which is being constructed by Ørsted.
At a special meeting of the Authority Thursday morning, Executive Director Michael J. O’Connor told the members 47 of a planned 65 turbines have been installed.
The 47th turbine was on a vessel en route to the wind farm site when federal authorities called a halt to the project — Ørsted received permission to finish installing it.
O’Connor said that ships arriving from Europe with components for the project were allowed to dock and unload, but new shipments have been stopped.
The challenge for the Authority will be to plot the future use of the pier if Ørsted cannot get the project restarted.
O’Connor noted that uncertainty also hangs over the follow-on project, Sunrise Wind, that would have utilized the State Pier.
“They only got a halt order for the project in progress, but Sunrise Wind, which is 84 turbines, was expected to start immediately on the completion of the installation of Revolution,” he said.
Those two projects would have supported work at the State Pier until the end of 2027, after which the Port Authority was expecting to benefit from more wind farm development.
O’Connor told the board that other uses are under consideration for the facility.
“We’ve already been approached, earlier this year, by transport companies from as far away as Miami,” he said. “We do have an initiative to do short sea shipping in Connecticut to relieve freight on the highway.”
He said in the future after Ørsted’s lease on the pier ends, the aim would be to have multiple functions at the facility to mitigate the risk posed by a single use.
The discussion came on the same day that Connecticut and Rhode Island announced they are preparing to sue the Trump administration to overturn the federal order halting construction.
The lengthy renovation of the pier, completed specifically so that it could serve as a staging area for the wind energy sector, cost some $311 million — more than three times the original projection.
Revolution Wind was slated to provide 700 megawatts of electricity to Connecticut and Rhode Island once it was in service, enough to power more than 350,000 homes in both states.
Some 1,200 people have been employed in the construction phase.
The board went into executive session after O’Connor’s briefing.
