A competitor to Bluewater Wind has been tapped by the state of Rhode Island to build a wind farm off its shores that would produce about 15 percent of all electricity used in the Ocean State.

Gov. Donald Carcieri chose Deepwater Wind -- formerly Winergy -- on Thursday to develop a privately financed project that would provide 1.3 million megawatt hours of offshore wind power per year.

The Bluewater project in Delaware, by comparison, would deliver about 605,000 megawatt hours a year. Bluewater had been one of seven companies bidding for the Rhode Island project.

The decision brings to three active plans to build wind farms off the U.S. coast. Besides Bluewater, there's Cape Wind, a private wind farm proposal on Nantucket Sound. New Jersey is nearing the selection of a developer for its own offshore farm.

All projects will have to seek federal permits, the rules of which have not been finalized.

There are currently no wind farms off the American coast.

"It don't think it's important who's first. American energy independence needs all the offshore wind it can get," said Chris Brown, CEO of Deepwater.

Deepwater plans to use a different technology for securing its turbines to the ocean floor. Bluewater plans to use "monopiles," or a single rod, the most common approach in Europe.

Deepwater will use the four-prong "jacket" method, similar to the bases of oil platforms. The technology, which is beginning to be used off European coasts, can go in deeper waters; hence, the company's name.

Jeremy Firestone, an associate professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware, said it helped Deepwater's cause that it committed to create a regional manufacturing facility to build support structures for the turbines. That will be at Quonset Point.

"Eight hundred jobs and a $1.5 billion investment doesn't hurt," said Firestone, who teaches a class with Brown, who is originally from Newark at UD.

Carcieri said in a written statement: "This is much more than an energy project. This is about creating an industry in Rhode Island, and industry that puts Rhode Island at the epicenter of the emerging alternative energy market."

Unlike the Bluewater contract in Delaware, Rhode Island does not have a contract with a utility to buy the power. But Firestone said residents of Block Island pay enormous electricity rates because they must rely on barged-in oil.

"You could build a rather expensive wind farm and sell power and make money there," Firestone said.

Winergy proposed an offshore wind farm off Bethany Beach in 2002, but the project never took off.

Brown tipped his hat to Bluewater for the work it did in Delaware .

"I think there's probably a reticence to go with newer technology, but the time's kind of now. I think that Bluewater Wind did a good job. It's a hard thing to convince people to move to something they don't know," Brown said.