New England and Long Island may seem far apart when you're on the Long Island Expressway or I-95.

The windfarm off the Rhode Island coast could provide 600 megawatts of clean energy for Long Island.But the two may soon share a source of renewable energy that is currently winding its way through the approval process.

On Monday, Deepwater Wind took a key step forward in the federal process to build a wind farm off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, which it hopes to use to sell energy to the Long Island Power Authority.

According to the Long Island Business News, the company obtained a "finding of no significant impact" from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. This is an important milestone in obtaining a lease for the 250-square-mile site from the federal government, and is essential before obtaining financing and taking other steps.

Deepwater is hoping to sell 600 megawatts of power (roughly the capacity of two traditional power plants) to LIPA as part of the authority’s request for proposals for up to 2,500 megawatts. The company said the project, which would include up to 200 turbines, also would include an offshore transmission system linking the Long Island and the New England grids.