First Offshore Wind Farm Approved to Connect to New York’s Grid

March 13 (Reuters) – Energy firm Equinor on Wednesday announced the first Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for an offshore wind project to connect directly into the New York City transmission system.

FERC on March 1 approved the Large Generator Interconnection Agreement (LGIA) executed between the company’s Empire Wind 1 project, New York ISO (NYISO) and Consolidated Edison Co ED.N, Equinor said in a release.

With FERC’s clearance, the 810 megawatts of renewable electricity from Empire Wind 1offshore wind project can be connected to the New York City electrical grid at Con Edison’s Gowanus substation via the Sunset Park Onshore Substation at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT), the company said.

Empire Wind is set to transform the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT) into a major offshore wind industry assembly facility and operations and maintenance base. SBMT, a 73-acre site, will become one of the largest dedicated port facilities for offshore wind in the U.S., supporting the assembly of offshore wind turbine components. It will also host the onshore substation for Empire Wind 1 and provide onshore power and charging for the Empire Wind Service Operations Vessel (SOV), the first plug-in hybrid vessel for the U.S. offshore wind industry.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management also approved the project’s federal Construction and Operations Plan last month.

Recently, U.S. officials gave Equinor approval to start building a massive offshore wind farm off the coast of New York, a milestone for a project that has faced soaring costs and does not have a power supply contract.

Last month, a Clean Air Act permit was granted to New York’s Empire Offshore Wind LLC owned by Equinor.

(Reporting by Anjana Anil and Daksh Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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