NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) — Fifteen miles off of Rhode Island’s nautical coast, construction is underway on the state’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm.
Danish clean energy company Orsted estimates its turbines will generate enough energy to power more than 350,000 homes across Rhode Island and Connecticut.
But in order to have the project completed by 2026, a significant amount of work must also happen on land. At Quonset Business Park, a collection of companies charged with working on the new wind farm project have formed their own ecosystem.
Touring Quonset Business Park
Steven King, the managing director of the Quonset Development Corporation, took Target 12 on a tour across the business park in October. King’s tour began on the coastline, where crews are working on the cable lines that will eventually bring offshore power to Rhode Island’s mainland.
“The cables are going to come up Narragansett Bay under the Jamestown Bridge,” he explained.
King said construction crews have been using horizontal directional drilling, a process the EPA describes as a low-impact way to establish utility lines.