At a Connecticut Port Authority board meeting last week, Chairman David Kooris said there has been close coordination with Eversource and Ørsted to make sure the State Pier project is finished in time to be used on their 132-megawatt South Fork Wind project, which had a ceremonial groundbreaking this month in Long Island, and is supposed to go online in late 2023. The projected cost of the project has ballooned from $93 million when it was announced in 2019 to a projected total cost of $235 million last year. The project has also been pulled into an FBI investigation of former Office of Policy and Management Deputy Secretary Kosta Diamantis, who was the state’s point person on procurement for the State Pier project and is being investigated by the FBI for his actions as head of the state’s school construction grants program – as CT Mirror has reported. Nolan said he believes the redeveloped pier would be a “key strategic advantage” to the Eversource-Ørsted partnership given its proximity to their 550 square mile offshore wind lease area in the Atlantic Ocean, where he said the companies plan to build at least 4,000 megawatts worth of projects in the coming years – about double what is already planned between South Fork, Sunrise and Revolution.
Looming Deadlines Push Costs, Possible 16-Hour Days for State Pier Redevelopment