In a significant development for the U.S. offshore wind industry, Ørsted and Eversource, joint development partners, have celebrated the departure of the first American-built offshore wind substation from a fabrication facility in Texas. The substation is currently en route across the Gulf of Mexico and will be installed at the South Fork Wind project site on the East Coast in a few weeks.
Kiewit Offshore Services, responsible for the design and construction, built the 1,500-ton, 60-foot-tall substation at its facility near Corpus Christi, Texas. This substation will play a crucial role in promoting domestic energy production, enhancing America's energy independence, and diversifying the national energy mix.
Texas and the Gulf of Mexico region are taking center stage in establishing a domestic offshore energy supply chain, with the construction of America’s first wind turbine installation vessel, Charybdis, currently underway in Brownsville. Ørsted and Eversource will be the inaugural offshore wind developers to charter the Charybdis.
The South Fork Wind substation, constructed by over 350 workers across three states, will serve as a topside structure, collecting power from wind turbines within the wind farm and transmitting it to the grid. The substation, which was designed in Kansas and engineered in Texas, will be installed in New York.
“We’re putting American ingenuity to work as we build out a domestic offshore wind energy supply chain with investments and job opportunities spanning the Northeast, down to Texas and across the Gulf Coast region,” said David Hardy, Group EVP and CEO Americas at Ørsted. “The completion of South Fork Wind’s offshore wind substation is yet another first for this groundbreaking project and moves us one step closer to the project’s first ‘steel in the water.’”
Ørsted and Eversource are leading the growth of the American offshore wind energy industry, fostering job creation and driving economic development nationwide. Their investments in shipbuilding across the Gulf Coast are generating substantial benefits, as workers with experience in ocean-based industries transition to this emerging energy sector. Notably, the US-flagged wind farm service operations vessel ECO EDISON, the first Jones Act-qualified vessel, is currently under construction by Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO), supporting Ørsted and Eversource’s Northeast projects.
The South Fork Wind project is progressing with its offshore construction phase, including the installation of a 68-nautical mile submarine cable and monopile foundations. Vessels from various Gulf ports are involved in supporting the project's construction.
Anticipated to be operational by the end of 2023, South Fork Wind will be the first completed utility-scale offshore wind farm in federal waters. It will power approximately 70,000 homes annually in New York, serving as the state's inaugural offshore wind farm.
