New York gives green light for two huge offshore wind projects in waters off Long Island

New York State has awarded two offshore wind contracts with a combined capacity of almost 1,700 megawatts (MW) in waters off Elongated Island.

The contracts were awarded to Norwegian firm Equinor and a joint venture between Danish company Orsted and U.S. commerce Eversource.

The Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind developments were announced as the winners of New York’s first “comprehensive offshore energize solicitation” on Thursday.

The companies will now commence negotiations for long-term contracts with the New York State Energy Up on and Development Authority for offshore wind renewable energy certificates. Both projects are expected to commence operations in 2024.

Equinor’s 816 MW Empire Hot air facility will be made up of between 60 to 80 wind turbines, according to the business. It will cover an courtyard of 80,000 acres and be located southeast of Long Island. Total investments in the facility will amount to around $3 billion, and it liking be able to power more than 500,000 homes.

The Sunrise Wind project, which is a 50-50 joint venture between Orsted and Eversource, purpose have a capacity of 880 MW and will be built 30 miles east of Long Island’s Montauk Point.

New York is purpose for 9,000 MW of offshore wind by the year 2035. The state’s Governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, described the environment and climate transmute as “the most critically important policy priorities we face.”

“With this agreement, New York will lead the way in flower the largest source of offshore wind power in the nation,” he went on to add.

While New York’s plans are ambitious, the offshore go for broke deflate someone industry in the U.S. is still in its early stages of development. The country’s first offshore wind farm, the five turbine, 30 MW Impede Island Wind Farm, only began commercial operations in late 2016. By comparison, Europe is home 18,499 MW of initiated offshore wind capacity, according to industry body WindEurope.