What's happening with the Revolution Wind project? Here's where it stands.

PROVIDENCE – Ørsted is pushing back the planned operating date for Revolution Wind from 2025 to 2026 because of construction delays on the onshore substation that will connect the 65-turbine offshore wind farm to the regional power grid.

The Danish offshore wind developer announced the setback in an earnings call with investors Thursday morning.

Permitting at Quonset pushes back operating date

The electrical substation is being built in the Quonset Business Park by Eversource, Ørsted’s partner on the 704-megawatt wind farm under construction about 15 miles south of Little Compton.

Eversource, a regional energy utility, began work on the onshore portion of the transmission cable about a year ago at the state-owned business park in North Kingstown, formerly a Navy base.

The location of the substation on a former military landfill has created unforeseen complications, Ørsted reported.

“Permitting and site preparation have proved to be more challenging than anticipated,” the company said in its written report to investors.

Meaghan Wims, a spokeswoman for Revolution Wind, said the problems resulted from soil contamination at the site that was worse than initially thought.

"While we were aware of the soil contamination at this site given its past use as a Naval disposal facility, the comprehensive analysis from Eversource as part of the early construction work showed that the level of contamination, and its impacts to the project schedule, are more substantial than anticipated," she said in a statement. "As a result, an update to the site design was required, which has resulted in a delay to the onshore construction activities."

Ørsted reported that the delay will add about $310 million in additional costs to the project because of the longer construction period.

Offshore construction continues on schedule

“Despite this unsatisfactory development, the offshore construction activities of Revolution Wind continue to progress on track,” the report continued.

The company began offshore work this spring on Revolution Wind and installed the first monopile foundation in May for the wind farm that would supply Rhode Island and Connecticut with enough power for 350,000 homes.

Since then, crews have hammered 47 of the project's 67 monopiles into the ocean floor and are on the verge of putting up the first of the 11-megawatt Siemens Gamesa turbines, according to Wims.

Construction of the wind farm comes at a challenging time for the offshore wind industry, which is faced with rising costs caused by inflation and has more recently been dealing with fallout from the failure of a blade at the Vineyard Wind project being built south of Nantucket. Pieces of the broken blade have been washing up on south-facing beaches along the Massachusetts coast for weeks.

"We remain committed to constructing Revolution Wind and investing in new American energy generation that will meet Connecticut and Rhode Island’s growing electricity needs while creating thousands of jobs and supporting local communities,” Wims said.

Offshore wind is important part of climate policy

Revolution Wind is critical to Rhode Island’s climate policy. In order to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, as state law requires , Rhode Island must develop alternatives to fossil fuel-burning power plants.

While Rhode Island has quadrupled its solar capacity in recent years, developing offshore wind is seen by policymakers as crucial because the state is densely populated and has limited land area.

And even as Rhode Island gets closer to its goal of getting – or at least offsetting – 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2033 , it has to look to bring even more supplies on line as transportation and heating systems are electrified.

Procurement for more offshore wind is pushed back to early September

Rhode Island is looking for up to 1,200 megawatts of more offshore wind power under a procurement process being coordinated with Massachusetts and Connecticut. Four companies, including Ørsted, have submitted bids to the regional solicitation .

Selected proposals were set to be unveiled Aug. 7, but the announcement was postponed until Sept. 6 to allow for any changes to bids due to the recent award of $389 million in federal funding to upgrade the regional transmission system to facilitate the interconnection of more offshore wind farms.

Any new contracts with Rhode Island Energy, the state’s main energy company, would now be submitted to state utilities regulators for approval by Dec. 13.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: What's happening with the Revolution Wind project? Here's where it stands.