Biden Administration Approves Vineyard Wind Project

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MA — The Biden Administration announced its final approval of the Vineyard Wind project Tuesday, providing the green light for the nation's first large-scale offshore wind farm.

Vineyard Wind, located approximately 15 miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, will have a generating capacity of 800 megawatts and provide enough clean electricity to power over 400,000 homes.

The $2.8 billion project, a step towards the Biden Administration's goal to expand renewable energy production, is expected to reduce electricity rates by $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.68 million metric tons annually.

"New England is shifting to clean, competitively-priced energy, and Massachusetts state law seeks to have 3,200 MW of offshore wind providing electricity to the Commonwealth by 2035, which could represent over 20% of electricity consumed in the state," says the Vineyard Wind website.

"Vineyard Wind is an important part of that goal, and will make a significant contribution to the Commonwealth’s aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while growing our economy and enhancing energy security and reliability," it continues.

A joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, the Vineyard Wind project will involve the installation of 32 miles of high voltage cables buried up to six feet under the sea floor. From there, the cables will connect to a substation and feed into a grid system that will be ready to provide power from approximately 62 GE turbines.

The turbines, each capable of generating 13 megawatts of power, are set to be installed starting in 2023, the earliest the project is slated to begin operations.

President Biden has established a goal of employing tens of thousands of workers to build 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2030. According to the administration, meeting this target would trigger over $12 billion per year in capital investment, create jobs, generate enough power to run 10 million American homes for a year, and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.