With the summer season now in the past, the developers of the South Fork Wind farm are set to accelerate on and offshore construction of its 12 turbines, beginning next month and lasting through April, officials said in a virtual open house on Monday.
Orsted, which built the world’s first offshore wind farm, owns and operates the United States first offshore wind farm and has installed more than 1,500 turbines worldwide, and Eversource Energy, which has operated in the Northeast for more than 100 years, are developing New York State’s first offshore wind farm, which will be situated approximately 35 miles off Montauk Point. Its export cable will make landfall at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott.
Vincent Montemurro, a project manager, described three components of the wind farm’s sea-to-shore transition, construction of which is set to begin on Oct. 3. One of these, which will start in early November and last into 2023, is a source of some anxiety among Wainscott residents in particular: horizontal directional drilling under the beach and nearshore, through which the wind farm cable will come ashore.
Drilling will span 2,500 feet, beginning 500 feet landward of the dune, extending across the beach at a depth of at least 80 feet, and for another 1,700 feet under the sea floor. There will be no construction activity on the beach itself.
The 138-kilovolt cable will travel approximately two miles below town-owned roads and another two miles below the Long Island Rail Road right-of-way, excavation for which is mostly complete. At a facility under construction at the Long Island Power Authority substation off Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton, where the wind farm will connect to the electrical grid, the current will “step down” to 69 kilovolts, Mr. Montemurro said.
Several underground splicing vaults have been constructed along the cable’s path to the interconnection facility, with four still to be installed under town roads and three to be installed under the L.I.R.R. right-of-way. Work on these will begin next month, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with each installation estimated to take three or four days. Detours will be in place, but local access will continue.
“We do intend to use the full range of time,” said Jennifer Garvey of Orsted, “simply so we can be done faster. We want to finish up as soon as we possibly can.”
A plastic conduit sleeve will be floated from New England to the waters off Wainscott, Ms. Garvey said. Equipment onshore will pull it through the tunnel bored by the horizontal directional drilling and onward through its subterranean path to the interconnection facility. Onshore equipment will then pull the wind farm cable through the sleeve.
To mitigate construction noise, a temporary wall will surround the activity, Ms. Garvey said. All disturbed areas are to be fully restored by the end of April, she said, including revegetation and the resurfacing of roads.
A “very large barge” that can stand out of the water, similar to the Laredo Brazos, which conducted geotechnical survey work off the Wainscott ocean beach in 2020, is to arrive in November and remain offshore for an estimated three months but perhaps longer, depending on weather conditions.
The wind farm’s turbines will be installed next summer, beginning with their foundations around May 2023. They will not be visible from anywhere on Long Island, Ms. Garvey said.
The wind farm is scheduled to be in operation by December 2023.
Project personnel will be available to receive comments and complaints. Public inquiries or construction-related complaints or concerns can be aired by calling 631-887-5470 or emailing [email protected].
The project’s website, southforkwind.com, also provides a means for the public to communicate with the developers through a link to a contact form. Weekly construction bulletins will be posted on the site detailing the nature and location of work. Residents have been encouraged to sign up for project email notifications at southforkwind.com/contact-us.
