EPA Issues Permit Advancing Offshore Wind Project in New York

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency granted a Clean Air Act permit to New York’s Empire Offshore Wind project, a critical step in advancing the development of the massive wind farm off the Long Island coast.

The EPA issued the permit to project owner Equinor on Thursday after an analysis showed federal air quality standards would not be compromised during construction and operation of the wind farm development.

The Empire Wind project includes two offshore wind farms, the 816 MW Empire Wind 1 and 1,260 MW Empire Wind 2. 

The two wind farms will be located side by side about 12 nautical miles south of Long Island, and about 17 nautical miles east of Long Branch, New Jersey.

Together, their 147 turbines will be capable of producing renewable power for more than 700,000 homes each year, according to an assessment by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“When built, this project is expected to generate more than 2,000 megawatts of electrical power for New York state — enough to power as many as a million homes,” said EPA Regional Administrator Lisa Garcia in a written statement. 

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must approve state permitting plans to ensure proposed projects don’t exacerbate pre-existing problems with ozone and other pollutants that in turn could compromise the health of people living in the area. 

The EPA permit covers the project’s turbines, two offshore substations and the associated cables needed to transport the electricity. The impact of various onshore components of the project were not assessed.

According to the EPA, those components will be assessed through separate federal, state and local permitting processes. 

Construction of the project is expected to begin later this year and take about four years to complete.

The permitting comes less than a month after a restructuring of the ownership of the Empire Wind project.

In January, BP announced that it was taking ownership of Equinor’s 50% stake in the Beacon Wind U.S. offshore wind projects, located in federal waters between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Long Island, New York, and that Equinor would acquire BP’s 50% stake in the Empire Wind project.

The move, BP said last month, would allow it to independently pursue future offshore wind opportunities in the United States.

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