Posted on June 19, 2023
In just about four hours, the first monopile tower in Vineyard Wind‘s offshore wind farm was installed in shallow continental shelf waters south of Martha’s Vineyard last week.
Work on putting in the foundational structures for the 800-megawatt project — touted as the nation’s pioneer commercial-scale, offshore wind farm — began June 7. The lease area is located about 15 miles south of the Vineyard and about 35 miles south of mainland Massachusetts.
“We’re installing the first six foundations during this campaign, and installation will continue throughout the summer,” Vineyard Wind Communications Director Andrew Doba said.
In all, 62 towers will be installed, positioned one nautical mile apart. The initial work includes the monopile towers — which are driven into the seabed using a nearly 300-foot, shipboard crane. The towers will be finished with yellow transition pieces at the surface that serve as platforms for service crews and bases for the turbine towers.
Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, plans to top the foundations with GE Haliade-X turbines, considered to be the most advanced in the industry. The turbines include nacelles, rotors and three blades that are each almost the length of a football field (including the end zones). The first blades arrived in New Bedford last week.
