Army Corps issues its final two permits to Deepwater Wind

NATIONAL GRID PLC, Unitil Corp. and Eversource Energy proposed buying as much as 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy as a first step to comply with a Massachusetts law to aggressively develop the nascent industry in the U.S. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/CHRIS RATCLIFFE
NATIONAL GRID PLC, Unitil Corp. and Eversource Energy proposed buying as much as 800 megawatts of offshore wind energy as a first step to comply with a Massachusetts law to aggressively develop the nascent industry in the U.S. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/CHRIS RATCLIFFE

(Updated, 2:09 p.m.)
BOSTON – The Block Island Wind Farm demonstration project for Deepwater Wind LLC has received two long-awaited federal permits through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
On Thursday, the Army Corps’ New England District issued permits that were five years in the making, Michael Elliott, a senior project manager, said on Friday.
The first permit, issued to Deepwater Wind – Block Island, is for five wind turbine generators and cable to connect them to Crescent Beach on Block Island, Elliott said.
The second permit, issued to Deepwater Wind Block Island Transmission LLC, authorizes cable from the mean high water mark at Block Island at Crescent Beach, under the water for 21 miles to Scarborough State Beach in Narragansett. After that, the cable is permitted to travel under state roads to a substation in Narragansett, where it will enter the power grid through National Grid, Elliott said.
“It’s the main federal authorization for it,” he said of the newly issued permits.
“We’re ready to build this project and to bring new jobs and clean energy to the region,” Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski said in a Friday news release.
The applicants still needs a separate Bureau of Ocean Energy Management right of way grant to cross the federal waters, which Elliott said could come this fall.
Once all state and federal permits are in hand, the company plans to begin the final stages of construction on the Block Island Wind Farm in the spring or summer of 2015 and complete the project sometime in 2016, he said.

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