Vineyard Wind 1 is an offshore wind farm under construction in U.S. federal waters in the Atlantic Ocean in Bureau of Ocean Energy Management-designated Lease Area OCS-A 0520, about south of

Martha's Vineyard Martha's Vineyard, often simply called the Vineyard, is an island in the Northeastern United States, located south of Cape Cod in Dukes County, Massachusetts, known for being a popular, affluent summer colony. Martha's Vineyard includes the s ...

and

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

, Massachusetts. The array is designed to include 62 Haliade-X wind turbines manufactured by

GE Offshore Wind GE Offshore Wind is a joint venture with Alstom and a subsidiary of GE Renewable Energy, created in 2015 when most of that company's other electrical power and generation assets were acquired. GE's stake in the joint venture is 50 % plus 1 share. ...

with a nameplate capacity of 804 MW combined, equivalent to the annual power use of 400,000 homes. The

Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities is one of two Public Utilities Commissions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. There are currently three members of the commission. I ...

approved the project in 2019. Construction began on November 18, 2021. In October 2023, the first turbine was installed. Power from the first turbine started flowing into the ISO New England grid on January 2, 2024. Construction is expected to be complete by the end of 2024. The separate Vineyard Wind 2 project in Lease Area OCS-A 0522 was awarded a contract with Massachsetts for 800 MW in September 2024.

Project

The project is jointly owned by

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners P/S ("CIP") is an investment firm specializing in infrastructure investments, particularly wind power Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to generate electricity. Wind power is a ...

and Iberdrola, through a subsidiary of Avangrid Renewables.

(a subsidiary of

GE Wind Energy GE Wind Energy is a branch of GE Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of General Electric. The company manufactures and sells wind turbines to the international market. In 2018, GE was the fourth largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world. History ...

based in Europe) is supplying the 62 turbines. Windar Renovables is building the foundations. Nexans Group & Prysmian Group is providing cabling. Two independent

submarine power cable A submarine power cable is a transmission cable for carrying electric power below the surface of the water.Centerville in Barnstable on Cape Cod about 34 miles (some 55 km) away. They feed into the 115 kV grid at Barnstable Switching Station owned by

Eversource Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to ap ...

. The Port of New Bedford has been used as a staging area for the project. DEME is handling some construction and installation logistics. The vessels used must comply with the Jones Act, so feeder barges transport components from port to site.

Salem Harbor Salem Harbor is a harbor in northeastern Massachusetts spanning an area north and south of Salem, Massachusetts, Salem. Historically the Salem Harbor was the site of one of the major international ports in the colonies. During the American R ...

has also been developed as an

offshore wind port An offshore wind port describes several distinct types of port facilities that are used to support manufacturing, construction and operation of an offshore wind power project. Offshore wind turbine components are larger than onshore wind component ...

in conjunction with the project. During construction a

bubble curtain A bubble curtain is a system that produces bubbles in a deliberate arrangement in water. It is also called pneumatic barrier. The technique is based on bubbles of air (gas) being let out under the water surface, commonly on the bottom. When the b ...

from Thayer Mahan, Inc. is being deployed. A final environmental impact statement (FEIS) was released in March 2021. Approval was delayed during the term of U.S.

president Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

, due to concerns regarding fishing and safety. The permission was fast-tracked after Joe Biden took office. Final major federal approval was granted on May 11, 2021. A total of $2.3 billion in project funding was secured in October 2021. The Responsible Offshore Development Alliance representing fishing interests filed a federal lawsuit several months later disputing the approval,U.S. fishing group sues Biden administration over offshore wind project
/ref> and a group of Nantucket residents did so in January 2023. Solar competitor Allco Renewable Energy also filed suit. Construction proceeded despite the lawsuits. Electricity from the first turbines began flowing on January 2, 2024, with the final turbines expected to be installed by the end 2024. The developers have agreed to suspend construction during

right whale Right whales are three species of large baleen whales of the genus ''Eubalaena'': the North Atlantic right whale (''E. glacialis''), the North Pacific right whale (''E. japonica'') and the Southern right whale (''E. australis''). They are clas ...

activity in the area, and University of New Hampshire monitors their sounds. The project is expected to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce electricity costs for Massachusetts consumers. The wind farm has secured 20-year contracts to sell the power it produces for a fixed 20-year price of $0.09/kWh and has agreed to provide a total of $15 million for a fund to provide battery storage in low-income communities. Six beaches on Nantucket, MA, were closed after a wind-turbine blade from the offshore wind farm broke apart on July 13, 2024 sending fiberglass shards into the Atlantic Ocean and onto the nearby coast.

Overview

References

External links

Vineyard Wind
{{Wind power in the United States, state=collapsed Wind farms in Massachusetts Proposed wind farms in the United States Offshore wind farms in the United States

Project

Overview

See also

References

External links