All 12 turbines are spinning, the cables are live, and clean electricity is flowing. New York’s South Fork Wind has become the first utility-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, delivering roughly 130 megawatts of power to Long Island and the Rockaways — enough to supply approximately 70,000 homes and businesses with offshore wind energy.
At a glance
- Offshore wind energy: South Fork Wind’s 12 turbines sit about 35 miles off the coast of Montauk and are projected to eliminate up to six million tons of carbon emissions over the life of the project — the equivalent of taking 60,000 cars off the road for 20 years.
- Union labor: Hundreds of U.S. workers across three Northeast ports built the farm, including turbine assembly by union crews at State Pier in New London, Connecticut, and foundation fabrication at ProvPort in Providence, Rhode Island.
- New York climate targets: The project supports the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and nine gigawatts of offshore wind installed by 2035.
How the project came together
South Fork Wind did not arrive overnight. The Long Island Power Authority first approved the project in 2017, and construction on the onshore cable system began in February 2022. Progress moved steadily: the first monopile foundation went into the water in June 2023, and the final turbine was installed in February 2024.
The onshore transmission work alone created more than 100 union jobs for Long Island skilled trades workers. Long Island-based Haugland Energy Group installed the underground duct bank system and led construction of the onshore interconnection facility. LS Cable installed and jointed the cables, with support from Elecnor Hawkeye. Roman Stone, also on Long Island, manufactured concrete mattresses to protect the undersea cables.
The project also includes the first U.S.-built offshore wind substation, constructed by more than 350 workers across three states. That detail matters: it signals the beginning of a domestic supply chain that didn’t exist a decade ago.
What 130 megawatts actually means
Megawatt figures can feel abstract. Here’s a practical frame: 130 megawatts, generated cleanly and continuously by wind, replaces power that would otherwise come largely from fossil fuels. For a region like Long Island — which has historically relied on oil and gas generation more than most of New York — that shift is tangible.
The electricity travels through submarine cables to an onshore interconnection point, then feeds into the existing grid. Consumers don’t flip a switch and “get wind power” directly, but the electrons entering the system are genuinely clean, and the carbon that would have been burned is genuinely avoided.
Governor Hochul also recently announced awards for two additional projects — Empire Wind I and Sunrise Wind — totaling over 1,730 megawatts and $2 billion in near-term economic development investment. New York’s offshore wind pipeline is now one of the most ambitious in the country.
The bigger picture for U.S. offshore wind
The United States was relatively late to offshore wind compared to Europe, where the industry has operated at scale for more than two decades. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been accelerating federal leasing and permitting, and the Biden administration set a national goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.
South Fork Wind is small by European standards — the world’s largest offshore wind farms measure in the thousands of megawatts — but its significance is symbolic and structural. It proves the U.S. can permit, finance, build, and commission a utility-scale offshore project from start to finish. That proof of concept is what investors, port authorities, and supply chain manufacturers needed to see before committing to larger projects.
The International Energy Agency has projected that offshore wind could become one of the largest sources of electricity generation globally by mid-century. The U.S. has some of the world’s strongest offshore wind resources along its Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, as well as the Great Lakes.
What remains unresolved
The offshore wind industry in the U.S. still faces real headwinds. Supply chain constraints, rising interest rates, and permitting delays have pushed several other projects off schedule or forced contract renegotiations in recent years. South Fork Wind’s completion is a genuine milestone, but scaling from 130 megawatts to the gigawatts required under state and federal targets will demand sustained policy support, grid investment, and continued workforce development. The path is open — it is not yet smooth.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- More good news from Good News for Humankind
- The Good News for Humankind archive on renewable energy
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