The Biden administration approved plans to build a 141-turbine wind farm south of the Vineyard last week as another project off the Island’s coast appeared to be stalling out.
The Biden administration approved plans to build a 141-turbine wind farm south of the Vineyard last week as another project off the Island’s coast appeared to be stalling out.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved SouthCoast Wind on Friday, setting the company up to start construction on the farm about 26 miles south of the Vineyard. The 2.4 gigawatt project plans to send about twice as much power to Massachusetts and Rhode Island when compared to Vineyard Wind.
Planned to be built in a 127,388-acre swath of ocean, export cables from the project will skirt the Vineyard, connecting to the grid in Somerset, and potentially later on in Falmouth.
SouthCoast Wind, which is owned by the international renewable energy company Ocean Winds, has said it hopes to start construction in 2025 and potentially start delivering power by 2030.
The approval comes in the waning days of the Biden administration, which has been supportive of offshore wind energy development. So far, BOEM has approved more than 19 gigawatts of wind power.
“When we walked in the door of this Administration, there were zero approved, commercial-scale offshore wind projects in federal waters,” Deb Haaland, the secretary of the Interior, said in a statement.
And though the administration was cheering on the SouthCoast project, its planned neighbor Vineyard Wind 2 is in limbo after Connecticut state officials declined to sign on to buy power from the project.
On Friday, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection announced it would forgo signing agreements to buy electricity from Vineyard Wind 2, opting instead to invest in solar power.
The decision was a blow to Vineyard Offshore, the company behind Vineyard Wind 2, which was counting on Connecticut to buy about a third of its planned power production.
In September, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey opted to buy 800 megawatts from the project, as part of a planned three-state agreement with Rhode Island and Connecticut.
In a statement Friday, Vineyard Offshore said it would not be able to contract the project’s full 1,200 megawatts due to Connecticut’s decision to not buy the remaining 400 megawatts.
“We look forward to advancing this project and participating in future solicitations to meet the region’s growing energy needs while spurring economic investment and creating thousands of American energy jobs,” the company wrote.
Massachusetts is expected to have more bids for wind power in 2025, giving the company another chance to secure a buyer.
Vineyard Offshore is the same team that is behind Vineyard Wind 1, the offshore wind energy project that had one of its blades break earlier this year.
Comments
January 20th can't come fast
Ted EdgartownJanuary 20th can't come fast enough.
Have you heard of global
JOHN TISBURYHave you heard of global warming????
Gee, Ted - do you think it's
Carol formerly ChilmarkGee, Ted - do you think it's so much better to have the Vineyard ravaged by sea level rise? Global warming caused by burning fossil fuels is established scientific fact. Fact. So this is how we stop burning fossil fuels, because we don't have enough favorably-sited open land for these windmills on land. And yes, there have been stringent environmental assessments, and yes, they have been sited to avoid migration routes for whales (which are being killed by loose fishing line, btw), and yes, the cables bringing the power onshore are safe. We need those windmills.
I really wish all of these NIMBYs would stop for five minutes and consider what even a mere 10 feet of sea level rise would do to the Vineyard.
This isn’t about oil vs. wind
Danny East ChopThis isn’t about oil vs. wind. It’s about accepting that the damage is done. The water levels WILL rise. Storms WILL get worse. From a forward looking perspective, the maintenance of these offshore turbines looks like a future environmental disaster. The return isn’t good enough for the mess we are making out there with this investment.
Money is better spent on
Carl Kelly East ChopMoney is better spent on dealing with climate change rather than trying to change the climate. Increases in population demands reliable and consistent energy production. We need to accept and understand that humans have and will live off the land and one day the land just won’t be able to sustain mankind. Unless of course we stop humans from populating.
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