Governor Gina M. Raimondo and Deepwater Wind CEO Jeff Grybowski announced today in a press release that the Revolution Wind project is expected to create more than 800 direct construction jobs, 50 good-paying, permanent jobs for Rhode Islanders at every skill level and hundreds more indirect jobs.
In addition, Deepwater announced it will invest $250 million locally on the project, including $40 million in investments in Rhode Island ports. This investment will position Rhode Island to be a major construction hub in the growing American offshore wind industry.
“Deepwater did not seek and will not receive a penny of state tax incentives or state tax credits to support this project,” the press release states.
“Today, Rhode Island is cementing our place at the center of America’s offshore wind industry,” said Governor Raimondo in the release. “This renewed partnership with Deepwater Wind will bring hundreds of jobs to our shore and enough clean energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes. The next industrial revolution is in renewable energy. Once again, Rhode Island is leading the way.”
“We’re keeping our promise to Rhode Island,” said Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski in the release. “We’ve always known that the Block Island Wind Farm would be just the start of a much bigger opportunity for Rhode Island, and Revolution Wind is exactly what we envisioned. We’re proud to make major new investments in our home state and to put hundreds more Rhode Islanders to work building Revolution Wind. Thanks to Governor Raimondo’s outstanding leadership, the state that pioneered offshore wind will continue to be an epicenter for this new American industry for years to come.”
Governor Raimondo’s energy team selected Deepwater Wind for this project last week through an open, competitive and collaborative bid review process with Massachusetts. Earlier in her first term, Governor Raimondo set an ambitious goal to procure enough green energy to make Rhode Island’s energy system ten times cleaner and more renewable by 2020. Once fully contracted and approved by the Public Utilities Commission, this project will more than double Rhode Island’s existing clean energy portfolio.
“Providence is quickly moving to the forefront of clean power-generating cities,” said Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza in a release. “With this project, we are seizing the opportunity to grow our innovation economy, create good jobs and spur investment in the port.”
Deepwater Wind’s Block Island Wind Farm – the first offshore wind farm in North America – was completed in 2016 and began supplying energy to Block Island that year. That demonstration project created 300+ good-paying construction jobs. Revolution Wind is one of at least a dozen planned offshore wind projects in the United States. Upon completion, Revolution Wind will generate enough energy to power more than 200,000 homes across Rhode Islander, approximately half the homes in the state.
Deepwater Wind’s Revolution Wind project is a next-generation 400-megawatt offshore wind farm with up to 50 offshore wind turbines that will help the State of Rhode Island meet its clean energy goals in an affordable way.
Once permits are in-hand, local construction work on Revolution Wind would begin as early as 2020, with the project potentially in operation by 2023. Survey work is already underway at Deepwater Wind’s lease area. The Revolution Wind project will be located in Deepwater Wind’s federal lease area, a 256-square mile area in federal waters roughly midway between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Deepwater Wind’s lease site was the first to be competitively auctioned by the federal government. Deepwater Wind won that competitive auction in 2013.
Revolution Wind will be located in the same federal lease area as Deepwater Wind’s South Fork Wind Farm, a 90MW project to serve Long Island, N.Y. The exact location of the turbines within the lease area has not yet been determined. Ted Nesi at WPRI reports it will be built on federal waters roughly 18 miles from Newport.
The underwater transmission cable is planned to make landfall at Quonset Point, North Kingstown, where it will connect with the mainland grid.