A pre-lay multibeam survey operation has begun along the export cable route for the Vineyard Wind offshore wind farm in Massachusetts.
The survey operations, being performed by the research vessel Shearwater in the Nantucket Sound, will take approximately two weeks, subject to weather conditions.
Shearwater is accompanied by the fishing vessels Chicawa and Rock & Roll which are scouting during this operation.
The research vessel is back to the offshore wind farm’s export cable corridor after having completed vibracore acquisition operations at 31 locations within the corridor in Autumn last year.
Vineyard Wind has also recently completed an unexploded ordnance (UXO) survey at the Vineyard Wind Lease Area and along the Offshore Export Cable Route through Nantucket Sound, using the MPSV HOS Mystique.
During marine debris removal operations, the vessel uncovered a potential UXO within the lease area, after which the Coast Guard was notified and a Local Notice to Mariners published.
The export cable for Vineyard Wind 1, the first utility-scale offshore wind project in the US, will be supplied and installed by Prysmian, under a EUR 200 million contract awarded in 2019 and given the final go-ahead after the project reached financial close last year.
Located 15 miles (approximately 24 kilometres) off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind 1 is the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the US to achieve financial close and, at USD 2.3 billion, represents one of the largest investments in a single renewable energy project in the country.
The wind farm, which entered construction in November last year, will feature 62 GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines, scheduled to produce first power next year.
Once fully operational, the wind farm will generate enough electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The 819 MW project is being built by Vineyard Wind, LLC, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).