April 9, 2018 — The Trump administration will expand wind energy leases off Martha’s Vineyard, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior announced Friday.
In a press release, Secretary Ryan Zinke said two more areas off Massachusetts totaling some 390,000 acres would go up for sale for future commercial wind farms. The lease area lies near a 300,000-acre swath of wind-rich deepwater ocean already designated for commercial wind farms, roughly 15 to 25 miles south of the Vineyard.
No wind farms have been built yet off Massachusetts, but a high-stakes business race is on as well-funded developers work their way through a dense bureaucractic process of permitting at the state and federal level. Construction could begin by 2019 and run through 2022.
The next key date in the permitting process is April 23, when bid winners will be announced for state-mandated energy contracts with utility providers. Tied to a 2016 law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker requiring state utility companies to buy 1,600 megawatts of power from alternative energy sources in the next decade, the energy contracts are critical for wind developers since they provide a way for wind farms to transmit electricity to consumers via the grid.
To date, three developers have been awarded leases to build utility-scale wind farms off the Vineyard: Vineyard Wind, Deepwater Wind and Baystate Wind.
Vineyard Wind is a partnership between Vineyard Power, the Island energy cooperative, and the Danish company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which has an offshore wind development arm.
Deepwater Wind, based in Providence, R.I., has already launched the country’s first offshore wind farm off Block Island.
Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette