A 20-mile long, 34.5kV submarine cable for the first US offshore wind farm arrived last weekend from South Korea to Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
This custom-designed transmission cable, developed by South Korean LS Cable & System Ltd., will interconnect to the 30MW Block Island offshore wind farm and will transport energy from Block Island to Narragansett.
The cable is now being unloaded from the transport ship and onto the cable installation vessel, the Big Max. The unloading of the 5-million-pound cable is expected to finish on Thursday, 14 April. Specialty Diving Services and Durocher Marine are in charge of the unloading process.
Deepwater Wind, the developer of the wind farm, completed the first offshore construction season at the site located some 3 miles from Block Island in November 2015, and will commence work again this spring, with turbine installation set to take place in the summer.
National Grid is, through sea2shore, involved in creating the infrastructure to transmit the energy generated by the wind farm to the grid.