U.S. turns another page in green energy production. America’s first offshore wind farm is operational

America’s first offshore wind farm became operational and it’s situated right off the coast of Block Island. The five turbines, each standing as high as the Statue of Liberty generate enough energy to power 17,000 homes.

America turns another page in green energy production with its first offshore wind farm. A joint General Electric and Deep Water Wind effort concluded with the installation and powering up of America’s first wind farm.

Block Island sits off the coast of Rhode Island between the northeastern tip of New York’s Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts and the wind farm has completed its commissioning and testing phases and begun commercial operations, delivering electricity into the New England region’s grid on a regular basis.

The energy is produced via five GE Haliade 150 – 6MW offshore turbines with enough capacity to generate 30 megawatts of renewable electricity from the breezes whipping over the sea’s surface here. It sits in the ocean, 3 miles south of Block Island, which now receives its power via undersea cables connecting the wind farm to the island and the Sea2Shore cable linking the wind farm to the mainland grid in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

The production and installation process was a separate challenge itself with turbines being shipped over the ocean from Europe. According to Deep Water Wind, the construction of the wind farm itself has helped with employment while the energy production process will help drive down the costs associated with electricity.

The wind farm produces enough power for 17,000 homes.

The turbines have had one of their greatest tests during winter storm Stella. All of them were operating at full capacity (30 megawatts) during much of the powerful storm according to Deepwater Wind’s performance data.

With wind speeds exceeding 55 miles an hour, the turbines successfully powered down and withstood wind speeds of 70 miles an hour. When the speed decreased, the turbines resumed their activity.

The first offshore wind farm turns another page for energy production in the US. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2016, about 4.08 trillion kilowatthours of electricity were generated at utility-scale facilities in the United States.

US still heavily relies on coal and natural gases for electricity. About 65% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels, 33,8% natural gases and over 30% coal.

Around 20% of electricity in America comes from nuclear energy, and around 15% is from renewable energy sources. Also, in 2016, it is estimated that an additional 19 billion kWh of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2016.

According to General Electric, the potential for U.S. offshore wind energy is massive, over 4,000 gigawatts, which amounts to more than four times the nation’s annual electricity production, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

In Europe, Holland just inaugurated the largest offshore wind farm ever built.