First US Offshore Wind Farm Starts Delivering Electricity

Yesterday, the Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island was commissioned and started powering homes in the island. It is a 30 MW wind farm with five turbines, but one of the turbines is not yet operating.

In other development, yesterday Shell won a Dutch auction for offshore wind energy (22 Km from shore) at 0.05450 Euros per kWh, that is less than $0.06 per kWh. The previous auction in July this year was won by Dong at 0.0727 Euros per kWh. These exclude transmission costs.

Earlier this year Vattenfall won a bid at 0.0499 Euros for 600 MW Kreigers Flak offshore wind project in Denmark.

At this rate, offshore wind may be already cost competitive with new fossil-fuel plants in these European countries .