A New York utility plans to construct the largest offshore wind farm in the United States off the coast of off eastern Long

A New York utility plans to construct the largest offshore wind farm in the United States off the coast of off eastern Long 

The Long Island Power Authority’s board of directors is expected to approve the proposed 90 megawatt (MW), 15-turbine wind farm at a meeting next week, according to reports in the Associated Press.

LIPA is awarding the project to Deepwater Wind, a private offshore wind development company based in Providence. Last summer, Deepwater Wind began construction on a five-turbine, 30 MW offshore wind farm located off the coast of Rhode Island. The $225 million offshore wind project in Rhode Island will provide electricity to Block Island and customers located on the mainland.

The Long Island project will be located about 30 miles off the coast of Montauk in the same federally approved waters as the offshore wind farm under development off the coast of Rhode Island. By siting the facility in the same area, it may be possible to bring the project online as early as 2022. The New York wind farm is expected to generate enough power for about 50,000 homes.

Deepwater Wind also plans to deploy two lithium-ion battery energy storage facilities designed by General Electric to provide LIPA power during periods of peak demand. The battery system will defer an investment in new transmission that would otherwise be necessary.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), an agency within the U.S. Department of Interior, has awarded roughly a dozen commercial offshore wind leases for more than one million acres in federal waters. In June, the BOEM issued a call for information and nominations to gauge the wind industry’s interest in commercial wind leases in two areas offshore Hawaii.

Meanwhile, several offshore wind farms are already operating in Europe. The proposed site for the world’s largest offshore wind project under development is located in the North Sea about 80 miles off the east coast of Yorkshire.

The Dogger Bank Creyke Beck offshore wind farm will have 400 turbines and a total installed capacity of up to 2.4 gigawatts (GW) and would cover an area spanning about 430 square miles. The Forewind consortium, which is owned equally by the international energy companies RWE, SSE, Statkraft and Statoil, began developing the Dogger Bank project in 2011.

William Pentland is a Partner at Brookside Strategies, LLC, a consulting firm in Kennebunk, ME that focuses on issues in utility regulation, market strategy and energy policy.