Offshore WIND’s photo of the day: Full steam ahead at the Block Island offshore wind farm site.
Deepwater Wind started building the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. yesterday , when the installation vessel Weeks 533 and a barge carrying wind turbine foundations met three miles (4.8 kilometres) off Block Island with several crew transfer vessels and tug boats.
Today, a couple of environmental monitoring vessels are preparing to oversee the area during pile driving activities.
The foundations will be lifted from a barge and, once in position, they will be secured to the seabed by foundation piles driven through each of the 4 legs of each foundation.
The installation is expected to take approximately 8 weeks, with cable installation and final erection of the wind turbines scheduled for 2016.
The wind farm, which will comprise five 6 MW wind turbines, is scheduled to be online in 2016.
Image: Jeff Grybowski, Deepwater Wind’s CEO