LIPA has selected Deepwater Wind, which is already building a 30-MW project off Block Island, Rhode Island, to develop the project.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has awarded about a dozen leases for commercial wind farms, but only the Block Island project has begun construction.

Deepwater Wind said the South Fork Wind Farm is part of a larger lease obtained from BOEM in 2013 that could eventually scale up to 1000MW

Deepwater will install 15 6MW turbines about 50km off the coast with two 5MW lithium-ion batteries to replace transmission investments that otherwise would be necessary.

If all goes well, construction work could begin by 2021, with an operational date of December 2022.

The project will cost a typical residential customer about $US1.20/month, comparable to utility-scale solar.

LIPA is looking to develop 400MW of renewable energy, as part of the New York Clean Energy Standard by 2023.

Community opposition has hindered other offshore wind projects on the East Coast.

A 468MW facility proposed off the coast of Massachusetts is tangled up in opposition from residents and no firm construction start date has been set, but LIPA is not expecting community opposition.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the LIPA project will “help achieve the state’s ambitious goal of supplying 50% of our electricity from renewable energy by 2030”

Offshore wind is big in northern Europe and the UK, with over 90% of global total offshore wind built in that region, yet Japan, China, Germany, and the United States are beginning to enter the race.

There are more than 40 projects all across the world being built or designed.

Currently, the largest offshore wind facility in the world is the 630MW London Array, a 175-turbine facility off England’s eastern coast, in the outer Thames Estuary. Song Energy is building tandem wind farms off the Dutch coast that will total 700 MW.

The world’s largest wind farm, Texas’ Horse Hollow Wind Energy Centre, uses 291 turbines to generate 735MW.