May 12, 2021 — After two decades of false starts and lengthy delays, Massachusetts is poised to get the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm with the approval Tuesday by the Biden administration of a massive energy project in federal waters some 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.
The decision is an important milestone for the Biden administration’s effort to battle climate change by moving the nation’s energy policy away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources. It is also validation of a push for wind power that started in Massachusetts some 20 years ago with the Cape Wind project that was proposed for waters in Nantucket Sound and eventually collapsed in the face of stiff opposition.
The Vineyard Wind project approved Tuesday would generate up to 800 megawatts of electricity from 62 giant turbines, enough to power at least 400,000 homes. Construction is expected to begin before the end of the year, once the developers have secured financing for the nearly $3 billion project. They hope to be generating electricity from a portion of the project by late 2023, with construction ending the following year.