Deepwater to Begin Construction on First U.S. Offshore Wind Farm.

Deepwater Wind LLC, the developer planning wind projects off the U.S. Atlantic Coast, received $290 million in financing that will allow it to build its Block Island project, the first such project in the nation.

“We’ll have steel in the water this summer,” Chief Executive Officer Jeff Grybowski said Monday in a telephone interview. “It’s an enormous step for the project, and it’s an equally enormous step for the offshore wind industry in the U.S.”

The $290 million in debt financing is from Societe Generale SA and KeyBank NA. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. D.E. Shaw & Co., the $36 billion New York-based hedge fund, also contributed about $70 million in equity to Block Island.

The 30-megawatt wind farm will use five 6-megawatt turbines manufactured by Alstom SA. They are scheduled to be installed in mid-2016, with the project expected to be operational by the end of that year. National Grid Plc has agreed to buy the wind farm’s output under a 20-year contract.