Alstom announced a contract to supply 5 Haliade™ 150-6 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbines for Deepwater Wind’s 30-MW Block Island pilot Wind Farm located off the coast of Rhode Island, USA. The project will be one of the first offshore wind farms in the U.S. and will be the first to feature Alstom’s Haliade™ 150-6 MW –the largest turbine installed in offshore waters today. The five turbines will produce approximately 125,000 MWh of electricity a year, enough to power over 17,000 homes.
The company will manufacture the Haliade™ 150-6 MW direct drive wind turbines and provide 15 years of operation and maintenance support for the Block Island Wind Farm owned and operated by Deepwater Wind, a leading developer of offshore wind in the United States. The Haliade™ 150-6 MW wind turbine features Alstom’s Pure Torque® design for optimum efficiency and reliability and its 150-meter diameter rotor provides an energy yield that is 15% better than existing offshore turbines, supporting the effort to drive down the cost of energy from offshore wind.
The Block Island project could lead to a larger utility-scale offshore wind farm of more than 1 gigawatt supported by a regional transmission system linking Long Island, New York and South-eastern New England. The project is aligned with The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s “Smart from the Start” offshore wind program, which aims to accelerate the development of clean, renewable offshore wind along the eastern seaboard of the U.S.
“Our contract with Deepwater Wind further demonstrates our commitment to the expanding U.S. wind market,” said Andy Geissbuelher, Head of Alstom’s North American Wind Business. “Drawing on the experience and knowledge gained from our collaboration with Dominion Virginia Power, we are driving the technology innovation needed to make offshore generation a strategic part of the energy mix”.
In 2012, Alstom was part of Dominion Virginia Power’s, Virginia Offshore Wind Technology Advancement Project that was selected as one of the seven U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) advanced technology demonstration projects. Dominion Virginia Power is planning to submit a funding proposal to the DoE for the second phase of the project that will help validate the next generation of hurricane resilient offshore turbine, foundation designs and advanced controls technologies along with the new processes involved in installation and operation of such equipment.
In late 2013, Alstom successfully installed its 6MW Haliade™, which at the time was world’s largest offshore wind turbine, off the coast of Belgium. Alstom is part of a consortium led by EDF Energies Nouvelles that was awarded three projects in the first tender launched by the French government to install offshore wind turbines generating 3 GWs of wind power off the coast of France. The successful bid included a total of 240 Haliade™ 150-6 MW turbines.
About Alstom
Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation, power transmission and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal and wind, and it offers a wide range of solutions for power transmission, with a focus on smart grids. The Group employs 93,000 people in around 100 countries. It had sales of over €20 billion and booked close to €24 billion in orders in 2012/13.
About Deepwater Wind
Deepwater Wind is a Providence, Rhode Island-based offshore wind developer. The Company is led by a veteran management team with extensive experience in developing renewable-energy projects in the northeastern United States. The Company is actively planning offshore wind projects to serve multiple East Coast markets located 15 to 25 miles offshore, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey. For its projects serving New Jersey, Deepwater Wind has formed Garden State Offshore Energy in partnership with PSEG Global, a wholly owned subsidiary of PSEG (NYSE: PEG). The Block Island Wind Farm, one of two Rhode Island offshore wind farms being developed by Deepwater Wind, is on target to become the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Visit www.dwwind.com for more info.
About Dominion Virginia Power
Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 23,600 megawatts of generation, 10,900 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipeline and 6,400 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates one of the nation’s largest natural gas storage systems with 947 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 15 states. For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s website atwww.dom.com
Source: Alstom
