South Fork Wind breezed into the history books on March 14 when officials declared all 12 turbines of the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm were fully operational 35 miles off the Montauk coast.
The 132-megawatt wind farm, which will power 70,000 of the Long Island Power Authority’s 1.1 million customers, took seven years to complete after the LIPA board initially approved the plan. The breakthrough came 20 years after the agency’s leadership initially proposed building a similar project off the coast of Jones Beach — a plan that was scrapped following community opposition.
