The Department of Energy has announced that it would award seven wind projects in a bid to help the wind industry on the design and development technology of off-shore power generation. The total award is to the tune of $28 million and the companies will receive their shares of $4 million each. The amount is to be spent on completing the work they have undertaken in six states after which three of them will receive $47 million over a period of four years in order to construct and install the machineries to start commercial production by 2017.
The projects will be taken up at New Jersey, Texas, Virginia, Oregon, Ohio, New Jersey and Maine after their approval by the Congress. The New Jersey project constitutes the installation of six turbines three miles off the Atlantic City in state waters. Similarly, four 3 megawatt turbines are proposed to be built in the Gulf of Maine.
The progress of the installation of wind farms in the U.S. is slow compared to that in Europe.
The companies welcomed the announcement of awards by the Energy Department and said that it would provide them the much needed boost. The sources in the Fisherman’s Energy Company revealed that the wind project to be built in New Jersey by 2014 would be its first off-shore wind project. It is believed that the successful completion of this project will open up doors for other manufacturers to take up off-shore wind projects.
The initiative to provide fillip to the off-shore wind projects was started in October when the Department of Interior awarded the lease to NRG Bluewater Wind under its ‘Smart From the Start’ program. The company gets the exclusive rights to explore and prospect the development of wind project in the 96,000 acres of ocean off Delaware.