Vineyard Wind

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 13 nmi south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. The array is designed to include 62 Haliade-X wind turbines manufactured by GE Offshore Wind with a nameplate capacity of 804 MW combined, equivalent to the annual power use of 400,000 homes. The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities 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.

Project
The project is jointly owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Iberdrola, through a subsidiary of Avangrid Renewables. GE Offshore Wind (a subsidiary of GE Wind Energy 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 cables run from an offshore 220 kV transformer about 15 miles south of the southeast corner of Martha's Vineyard, to Covell's Beach in 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.

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 has also been developed as an offshore wind port in conjunction with the project.

During construction a bubble curtain 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, 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, 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 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 in Nantucket, Mass., were closed on Tuesday after a wind-turbine blade from an offshore wind farm broke apart over the weekend, sending fiberglass shards into the Atlantic Ocean and onto the nearby coast. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nantucket-beaches-closed-after-wind-turbine-breaks-apart-sending-fiberglass-shards-into-ocean/