There’s probably going to be a lot of activity in the Atlantic south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket for the next few years. The Interior Department just finished its environmental review of the Vineyard Wind project there, clearing the way for the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the U.S.
The Vineyard Wind project is about 12 nm south of both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, and about 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. It is a massive project. When it is completed, it will deliver clean, renewable power to more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts.
The new federal approval came from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in the Interior department, and is part of the Biden administration’s goal to double the capacity of offshore wind projects in ten years. Last month, the Biden administration announced that it was restarting the environmental approval process for Vineyard Wind that the Trump administration had cancelled.
The project needs final approval from the Army Corps of Engineers and the National Fisheries Service; that approval is expected later this year. Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Inc. in Spain and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners in Denmark, expects to start offshore construction in 2022 and install turbines and export power to the mainland power grid in 2023.
Lars Pedersen, the CEO of Vineyard Wind, said that “Offshore wind is a historic opportunity to build a new industry that will lead to the creation of jobs, reduce electricity rates for consumers, and contribute significantly to limiting the impacts of climate change.” Read more:
