FEATURE
Figure 1: The Vinyard 1 Offshore Substation (Courtesy Avangrid)
US OFFSHORE WIND REACHES THE GULF OF MEXICO A New Energy Frontier Looks To Replace An Old Energy Frontier… Maybe BY BILL WALL
INTRODUCTION
Dare I say it, since my last article for SubTel Forum in September 2021 the US Offshore Wind (OSW ) industry has matured on the US east coast to the point where utility scale offshore windfarms are currently under construction. The 800MW Vineyard Wind project located some 15 miles off the island of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts in BOEM Lease Area OCS – A0501 is well underway. Recently in 2023 Vineyard Wind (a joint venture between AVANGRID, Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), installed their offshore substation onto a pre-installed 4-leg jacket foundation. See Figure 1 below. The 3000+ ton substation topside was installed by a European OSW vessel the Orion. (Still no dedicated OSW construction vessels in the US yet)
64 SUBMARINE TELECOMS FORUM MAGAZINE
As the sun is setting on the New England Horizon the Deme OSW vessel Orion is placing the substation top sides onto the foundation. See Figure 2 below. Once operational the Vineyard 1 Offshore Substation will accept the various submarine cable “Strings” of Inter Array Cable (IAC) that interconnect each wind turbine at a voltage of say 66KV. Then the power from the IAC strings is transformed up to a higher transmission voltage level, say 230KV, for transmission to shore via the project export cable for connection to the shore side grid. Another US OSW project that now has “Steel in the Water” is the South Fork project a 130MW OSW farm under construction in BOEM Lease area OCS – A0517 some 35 miles off Montauk, Long Island in New York State. South fork recently installed their first OSW turbine foundation. The Mono-Pile foundation was installed by another