Orsted has announced that the next phase of offshore construction at its 132MW South Fork offshore wind farm, a 50/50 venture with Eversource, in the US is set to begin.
Seabed preparation will begin soon to clear a path for the 68-nautical-mile submarine cable.
This will involve relocating boulders from the path of the cable, surveying to identify debris or “ghost gear” along the cable route, and clearance of debris, where necessary.
After this, sea-to-shore interconnection preparation is scheduled to take place from late February to early March.
This will involve preparing the area off Wainscott Beach in East Hampton to receive the cable before pulling it ashore.
This will be followed by nearshore cable laying, nearshore cable burial, offshore cable laying, and finally offshore cable burial, lasting until the end of April.
The cable laying process will take approximately a week, with burying taking another three weeks to complete.
However, Orsted noted that weather or sea conditions and other factors may impact the schedule.
The work will see a cable-lay barge, lift boat, support vessels, and specialised divers mobilised off Long Island.
DEME will use its cable-laying vessel Living Stone to perform some of the work. It picked up crew at ProvPort in Rhode Island in early February before sailing to South Carolina to pick up the submarine export cable at the Nexans cable facility.
The work is being completed by New York union construction workers, under Orsted’s National Offshore Wind Agreement with the Building Trades.
South Fork Wind is set to be fully operational by the end of 2023.