South Fork Wind, Sunrise Wind projects injecting $460 million into Long Island economy

Matt Prawl, an electrician from Uniondale, starts his workday like many trade workers on Long Island. He wakes up at 6 a.m. and quickly gets ready before having breakfast.

But unlike most others in his field, Prawl doesn’t hop in the car to get to work. He makes his way from his bunk aboard the HEA Leviathan, an elevated sea vessel stationed 30 miles off the Montauk coast, to a ramp connecting to Sunrise Wind’s offshore converter station. 

Prawl's duties include powering various systems and connecting them to each other. He has also worked on land installing underground casings for high-voltage cables.

“It’s a very peaceful bucolic setting when you have the time. But we’re here to work,” Prawl said.

Prawl, 44, is one of the more than 400 union trade workers hired by the energy and utility infrastructure firm Haugland Group to work on the construction of the more than $7 billion offshore wind project. 

In February, he completed his safety and technical training to work offshore through the National Offshore Wind Training Center in Brentwood, which has trained more than 1,100 trade workers to date.

Prawl, who has two young kids and a wife, said the roughly $7,500 in gross wages he's paid weekly have helped his family make home repairs and replace damaged vehicles. 

"It has been transformational," he said of the opportunity. 

The construction and ongoing operations at two of Long Island's major offshore wind projects — the South Fork Wind and Sunrise Wind — have injected more than $460 million into the local economy, according to projections from the Long Island Association, a business group. 

The projections, released in a report Tuesday, analyzed the projects' economic impact on the region between 2022 and 2027, and factor in money paid to local contractors, subcontractors and regional spending by workers.

National projections estimate that construction of offshore wind projects would support 43,000 to 80,000 jobs a year in the next decade, according to a 2024 analysis from Louisiana State University.

Despite national and local interest in offshore wind farms to meet surging electricity demands, the administration of President Donald Trump has declared war on wind energy since he entered office in 2025.

The administration has stopped the permitting of new projects and put a halt on projects under construction, including two off Long Island, moves that were later reversed in court, and the administration has been paying some developers big sums to give up their offshore lease rights.

The two projects for New York, Empire Wind off Jones Beach, and Sunrise Wind, for the Long Island Power Authority grid, are scheduled to go on line starting in 2027, though some arrays for Sunrise could be producing power by the end of the year. Construction was able to continue on Empire following negotiations with the developer, Equinor, and the state.

South Fork Wind's contract with LIPA is valued at more than $2 billion over its 25-year life span, according to state records.

But new wind development has largely ended. The state has withdrawn a bid for upward of 4,000 megawatts farther off the coast of Long Island, and there remain some questions about whether the U.S. wind industry can be revived.

Amid those challenges, the development of Orsted's South Fork and Sunrise Wind projects off Montauk Point have boosted spending at local businesses, created jobs, both temporary trade work and permanent maintenance engineering roles, and contributed to the Island's power generation needs, the LIA and local experts said. 

“We wanted to use this as a case study to demonstrate how energy and infrastructure is the foundation of economic growth and has a ripple effect through our regional economy,” said Stacey Sikes, acting president and CEO of the LIA.

While locally jobs in the offshore wind industry remain a small part of Long Island's 1.4 million nonfarm jobs, they were listed as a driver behind employment in construction, manufacturing and the education services industries, according to a 2024 Labor Department report. 

The South Fork Wind project has generated an economic impact of $95 million, and the Sunrise project and U.S. Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Hub in East Setauket are projected to generate $350 million and $20 million, respectively.

“There are significant economic benefits for Long Island through the two projects,” said Robert Catell, former chairman of National Grid U.S. and chairman of the Advanced Energy Research Technology Center at Stony Brook University. 

Catell said both job creation and the strengthening of Long Island's energy grid were important byproducts of the projects. 

Sunrise is estimated to have created more than 870 direct jobs so far either in construction or operations, according to the LIA, with an additional 546 jobs supported by spending at local businesses.

More than 240 estimated jobs were created in construction and operations for South Fork, with an additional 146 jobs supported, the report said.

“Energy infrastructure is transformational across the board,” said Rosalie Drago, vice president of external affairs and strategic engagement at Haugland.

Drago, former Suffolk County labor commissioner, said while job creation is important when looking at the wind industry, it's equally important to look at the quality of jobs. 

“The energy infrastructure and offshore wind jobs have great wages and benefits, but they also have a career pathway,” she said.

Wages for operations and maintenance workers vary among positions. Architectural and engineer managers made a median annual wage of $167,300, electrical engineers made $105,900, and wind turbine service technicians made a median $66,600 a year, according to a 2023 occupational report on the offshore wind industry from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.    

Newsday's Mark Harrington contributed to this story.