After nearly four months of grueling work 50 ft beneath a state beach in Rhode Island, crews have finished drilling a 2,250-ft tunnel for the conduit that will carry power from the 30-MW Block Island wind farm to a National Grid switching station in Narragansett, R.I.
David Graves, a spoke man for the energy provider to Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts, says the completion on May 6 will allow the company to begin installation of undersea cable when New Jersey-based subcontractor LS Cable America wraps up installation of Deepwater Wind cabling from five offshore turbines to the island. “We have had lousy weather and are at the mercy of the ocean, but we are prepared to begin laying our 20-mile stretch of cable from the mainland to the island on May 28,” he says.