Work on Offshore Wind Farm Project Begins

By Katie McFadden

Work is set to begin on an offshore wind farm off the coast of Rockaway and Long Island.

Work on Empire Wind 1, by Norway-based company Equinor, is starting this month. The offshore wind farm will feature 54 wind turbines about 14 miles off of Jones Beach State Park. Each turbine will be 951 feet tall and have a 15MW capacity. The entire Empire Wind Project, in Phase 1 and 2, will span 80,000 acres with 147 wind turbines, in water depths of between approximately 75 and 135 feet.

What will it do? As the wind turbines rotate, they generate power which will be delivered to an offshore substation. That power will then be sent onshore via two submarine export cables. These 40 nautical mile cables will deliver the power to an onshore substation in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. That power will then continue onto Gowanus, Brooklyn where it will connect into the New York City grid. Each turbine rotation will power a New York home for 1.5 days.

Activists against the project due to concerns for local marine life have been questioning how this project is moving forward. On day one of his administration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting a pause on new federal leases and permits for offshore wind projects, however Equinor’s Empire Wind got approval before President Trump was in office. They finalized the federal lease in March 2017. By December 2023, they received approval from New York State and in February 2024, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) issued final federal approval.

With all permits and funding approved, the project is full steam ahead. Work began on the Sunset Park Onshore Substation near the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal in June 2024, and should wrap up by summer 2026. Now the offshore work is starting soon with rocks being dropped around the windfarm site to stabilize the future wind turbines. Equinor has been providing updates through an online newsletter to subscribers. In the latest newsletter on April 1, it read, “Empire Wind 1 has contracted with Van Oord to conduct subsea rock installation within the Empire Wind 1 lease area at the 54 Wind Turbine Generators and 1 Substation. Beginning April 2025 to July 2025, Bulk Carrier Vessel NORDNES will be conducting the rock layer installation on the seabed to create a stable base for foundations and to protect against erosion. The rock layer footprint is small with a radius of 20 meters (66 feet) around each foundation location.”

An earlier report from NYSERDA said pile driving for the turbines may begin as soon as May 1. Equinor expects the first power to be delivered from this project by late 2026. Empire Wind is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2027.

Organizations and nonprofits that have been protesting wind farms for several years are leading last-ditch efforts to try to stop Empire Wind. On March 26, Save the East Coast, Inc. and Protect Our Coast – Long Island New York formally petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), requesting that the agency reopen, thoroughly reanalyze, and revoke the Clean Air Act permit recently issued to Empire Offshore Wind, LLC, citing significant oversights in the project’s environmental review and analysis. They are also trying to get the attention of U.S. Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum (exsec@ios.doi.gov) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin (zeldin.lee@epa.gov) to try to shut down the project. On March 26, NJ Rep. Chris Smith wrote a letter to Burgum advising him of the project and urging Equinor to pause it, citing a number of reasons.

For more info on the project and to sign up for Empire Wind’s newsletter, head to www.empirewind.com