By GREGORY ZELLER //
A massive offshore-wind farm projected to be up and running by the end of 2025 is already pumping serious currency into Long Island economics.
Ørsted A/S and Eversource Energy – the international partners behind Sunrise Wind, a 924-megwatt offshore-wind farm rising about 30 miles east of Montauk – on Monday awarded a contract valued at $200 million-plus to Haugland Energy, a division of the Melville-based Haugland Group, to install an underground transmission system in Brookhaven.
The project mirrors one the Haugland Group has already completed for South Fork Wind, a 132-megawatt Ørsted/Eversource effort expected to begin transmitting offshore wind-generated electricity later this year.
This time, Haugland will install an underground duct system at Smith Point County Park in Brookhaven’s Hamlet of Shirley, where Sunrise Wind’s transmission lines are slated to make landfall.
The job will require more than 400 construction-phase jobs – “Long Island skilled tradesmen and women, including heavy equipment operators, electricians and line workers,” Denmark-based Ørsted and Massachusetts-based Eversource said in a statement – while its $200 million-ish scope marks the largest single Sunrise Wind procurement to date.
With South Fork Wind – already billed as “America’s first completed utility-scale offshore wind farm” – close to firing up, Ørsted and Eversource are “excited” to once again call upon “the exceptional, hardworking and trusted team at Long Island’s Haugland Group,” according to Eversource Energy Chairman, President and CEO Joe Nolan.
“Today’s award is one of the largest offshore-wind supply-chain investments ever made in the United States,” Nolan said Monday. “Together with our state partners, we are committed to building a new clean-energy future for the Empire State that will provide not only significant new benefits for local communities, but also greater economic opportunity for workers.”
The 124-mile underwater “export cable” and onshore underground route transmitting electricity from Sunrise Wind to the regional grid was approved in 2022 by the New York Public Service Commission.
After the cable makes landfall below Smith Point (on Fire Island, where Haugland Energy will do its thing), an 18-mile subterranean route – dug mostly beneath public roadways and rights-of-way – will connect to an existing Holbrook substation. Onshore construction work is slated to begin later this year.
With a total regional economic investment projected to exceed $700 million and hundreds of direct and indirect jobs yet to come, the frequent Haugland Group collaborations are “a great example of how offshore wind is creating new opportunities for local businesses today,” according to Ørsted Executive Vice President David Hardy.
William Haugland Jr.: Bold leadership.
“Our offshore wind projects are putting New Yorkers to work, developing a statewide supply chain and bringing clean American energy to the state,” added Hardy, also CEO of Ørsted Americas. “Partnering with a local union contractor like Haugland Group is part of our commitment to building clean energy the right way, benefitting communities across Long Island and New York State.”
Haugland Group CEO William Haugland Jr., son of Chairman and serial entrepreneur William Haugland, thanked the international partners “for their continued confidence” and trumpeted New York State’s “boldest step toward carbon neutrality.”
“Haugland Group is proud to cement its leadership role in the renewable energy industry,” Haugland said Monday. “Sunrise Wind represents amplified opportunities for all Long Islanders, invigorating the local labor force and creating more than 400 union jobs, as well as new opportunities for local businesses and the contracting communities alike.”
With New York State setting an ambitious clean-energy agenda – 70 percent carbon-free electricity by 2030, 100 percent zero-emission electricity by 2040 – Sunrise Wind also represents “a massive win for the offshore wind industry,” according to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority President and CEO Doreen Harris.
“We congratulate Haugland Energy Group on their selection for this critical transmission project,” Harris added. “And (we) celebrate another offshore-wind milestone that will help generate renewable energy and bring significant economic benefits and family-sustaining union jobs to Long Island.”
