Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

America's First Offshore Wind Energy Makes Landfall in Rhode Island

Inside Climate News: BLOCK ISLAND, Rhode Island—America's first offshore wind farm will connect today to Block Island, a small, pork chop-shaped landmass off the tip of Long Island. For Cliff McGinnes, a co-owner of the Block Island Power Company, the transition to wind energy can't come soon enough.

For decades, McGinnes's company ferried up to a million gallons of diesel fuel a year from the Rhode Island mainland to power this tiny resort community (pop. 1,000). The fuel, a particularly costly and dirty energy source whose carbon dioxide emissions are second only to burning coal, lit up four antiquated generators on an island where power outages are common.

Last year, an oil leak at one generator burst into flames, destroying that dynamo and two others. The fire also melted one of McGinnes's utility trucks and caused rolling blackouts at the height of the summer tourism season, when the Block Island population balloons past 20,000. The company spent more than $100,000 to rent a pair of portable diesel generators. Customers, who already pay more for electricity than anyone in the country—50 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) or more during peak summer months, nearly five times the national average—shouldered the costs.

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