Deepwater’s plan in Rhode Island has been progressing on other fronts.
On Monday, Deepwater will open a Providence office at 56 Exchange Terrace where chief development officer Paul Rich will be based. The company also plans to open an office in New Shoreham later this month.
Additionally, within the next four weeks, Deepwater will erect a 180-foot temporary meteorological tower on Block Island that will be used to collect data on wind direction, speed and frequency — information critical to determining sites for the turbines and securing financing to install them. In March, the New Shoreham Town Council unanimously approved the installation of the steel tower at the entrance to the Great Salt Pond, on the west side of the island.
The company has already installed other equipment to aid in its studies, including a radar unit near the Southeast Light to monitor bird migration routes and a bat-monitoring system on a communications tower owned by the Town of New Shoreham. The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Deepwater a $295,360-grant to finance those studies, which will cost a total of $1.2 million.
