Construction is officially underway on New York’s second and largest offshore wind farm. Sunrise Wind will generate enough clean energy to power more than half a million homes in the state when it's completed.
State and local officials broke ground Wednesday on the 924-megawatt project located off the coast of Block Island in the waters south of Rhode Island.
Orsted, the project's developer, said the wind farm will create about 800 union construction jobs and thousands of indirect jobs in the local economy. Local labor leaders support the move.
“I call this our 'summer of shovels,'" Doreen Harris, president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, said at the groundbreaking ceremony. "We literally are building projects. And that's what I believe to be most important, is that we are making progress. We're demonstrating that these projects can exist and thrive and benefit folks on Long Island.”
Around 80 turbines will bring power ashore below the beach at Smith Point County Park on Fire Island, and then into a substation in Holbrook.
On the same day as the groundbreaking, Harris announced the state’s fifth round of solicitation for more clean energy projects off New York’s coast.
