Boskalis’s offshore installation vessel Bokalift 2 was responsible for the transporting and installation of the foundations, as well as the one for the substation, the first American-built offshore wind substation.
More than 350 workers across three US states supported the construction of the South Fork Wind substation, a topside structure that sits on the monopile foundation, and New York union workers supported its installation offshore, according to the project developers Ørsted and Eversource.
The South Fork offshore wind farm will comprise twelve Siemens Gamesa 11 MW wind turbines, installed at the project site some 19 miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, and some 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York.
Ørsted says that South Fork Wind will begin installing the wind turbines later this summer and into the autumn.
Array cable installation is ongoing, while the subsea export cable for the project was installed in March this year.
Greek cable manufacturer Hellenic Cables, owned by Belgian Cenergy Holdings, is supplying the inter-array cables for the offshore wind farm.
South Fork Wind, for which Ørsted and Eversource reached the final investment decision (FID) at the beginning of last year, will be New York’s first offshore wind farm and the second commercial-scale project of this kind to be built in the US, following Vineyard Wind.
Once completed by the end of this year, the South Fork wind farm will power approximately 70,000 New York homes each year with clean, offshore wind energy.
