The federal government has approved the state’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm, enabling construction of the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project to begin.
Onshore construction will start in the coming weeks, according to an announcement from the Danish company Ørsted and utility Eversource, which are developing the project.
Offshore construction is expected to begin in 2024, and the project should be operational in 2025, the announcement says.
Revolution Wind’s 65 turbines will deliver 400 megawatts of electricity to Rhode Island and 304 megawatts to Connecticut, enough to power about 350,000 homes across the states.
The clean-energy project is expected to create thousands of direct, indirect and induced jobs.
On Tuesday, Revolution Wind announced that it had received a “record of decision” from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. It’s a milestone in the federal environmental review process that effectively allows construction to begin.
Gov. Ned Lamont called the approval “welcome news for the state’s clean energy goals” saying that it will “help improve our environmental health and drive economic growth, particularly in towns along the shoreline where staging and assembly work is occurring.”
As part of the project, Ørsted and Eversource have already invested in redevelopment of the New London State Pier to create a state-of-the-art, heavy-lift marine terminal where Revolution Wind turbines will be staged and assembled.
Also, the two companies have partnered with Groton-based ThayerMahan, a maritime automation technology developer, to monitor wildlife and seabeds for the project.
The next step, approval of Revolution Wind’s construction and operations plan, is expected in November.
