By the end of 2008, construction could begin on the first U.S. offshore windfarm off Texas. Wind Energy Systems Technology, New Iberia, La., aims to provide 150 MW of wind power into Galveston as early as 2009.

The company hopes to reduce the risk of hurricanes by using modified offshore platform-lifting equipment to lower the 72-ton turbines in advance of high winds. Herman Schellstede, an oilfield engineer and one of the project’s principals, has also patented folding blades and a telescoping tower to move the equipment out of the way of hurricanes.

WEST’s use of proven offshore technology and knowledge from the Gulf’s oilfields makes the project more viable than offshore wind projects proposed in the Northeast using modified onshore wind technology says Len Maliscewski, chief engineer for Beaird Co., Shreveport, La. Beaird designs and constructs wind-turbine towers. Maliscewski worked with Florida Power and Light on a scrapped wind project off New York’s Long Island.

Schellstede and his partner Harold Schoeffler have invested $8 million in the project so far, and say the first 150-MW windfarm will cost about $250 million. In October, WEST secured four more leases off the Texas coast, near Freeport, Brownsville, Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, and is talking with financing partners who want to develop all tracts to produce a total of 1,500 MW.

The company installed a tower in May of this year off Galveston to test wind velocity. It will soon install an adjacent tower with a turbine to measure the wind power. Those measurements will dictate the final turbine size.

WEST will seek a permit to construct the windfarms after a year of testing. The first farm should be up and producing power within 18 months after permitting, Schellstede says. He is finishing designs for that prototype now. A second 150 MW will follow. Until the company secures a financing partner and finishes its testing, it won’t sign contracts for turbines or with a power purchaser, Schoeffler says.

Depending on turbine size, each farm will have about 60 towers feeding into a gathering platform. From there, power will be sent to shore via a stainless-steel- armored copper cable, 8 to 9 in. in diameter, buried 16 ft below the seafloor. The power will go straight into the grid.

The offshore locations are close to population centers, so expensive transmission upgrades won’t be necessary, says Bill Bojorquez, vice president of system planning for Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the electric grid in much of Texas.