PROVIDENCE, R. I. (WJAR) – For the first time in the United States, wind turbines are sending electrical power to the grid from the sites of two offshore wind farms.
The co-owners of the Vineyard Wind project, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, announced Wednesday the first power generation from a turbine in what will be a 62-turbine wind farm 15 miles off the coast of Massachusetts.
Five turbines are installed there. One turbine delivered about 5 megawatts of power to the Massachusetts grid just before midnight Wednesday. The other four are undergoing testing and should be operating early this year.
Danish wind power developer Ørsted and app Eversource announced last month that their first turbine would send electric power from what will be a 12-turbine wind farm, South Fork Wind, 56 kilometers east of Montauk Point, New York. Today, a total of five turbines have also been there.
Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra said 2023 is a historic year for offshore wind with “steel in the water and other people at work, and today we open a new bankruptcy and welcome 2024 by offering the first blank offshore wind force to the Massachusetts grid. “is an energy company headquartered in Orange, Connecticut. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is a leading and world-leading fund manager in renewable energy investments.
“We have reached a watershed moment for climate action in the United States and a dawn for the U. S. offshore wind industry,” Azagra said Wednesday.
Nearly 200 countries agreed last month at COP28 to move away from fossil fuels that contribute to global warming — the first time they made such a commitment in decades of U. N. negotiations. UN Climate Change. The agreement envisages tripling the use of renewable energy and offshore wind energy will contribute to achieving this goal.
But lately the sector has been going through difficult times. Developers canceled several projects along the East Coast because they were no longer financially viable.
On Wednesday, Equinor and BP announced a “reboot” of Empire Wind 2, a 1,260-megawatt offshore wind allocation off the coast of New York City, providing an update on the economic circumstances of the entire industry. The assignment is not cancelled, even more time will be needed to continue moving forward and participate in a long-term offshore wind tender. They did not replace the first phase of the allocation to expand an 800-megawatt wind farm in the same lease area, Empire Wind 1.
Large offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe, and more recently in Asia. Vineyard Wind was conceived as a way to launch offshore wind in the United States, and prove that the industry wasn’t dead in the United States at at time when many people thought it was.
The first U.S. offshore wind farm was supposed to be a project off the coast of Massachusetts known as Cape Wind. The application was submitted to the federal government in 2001. It failed after years of local opposition and litigation. Turbines began spinning off Rhode Island’s Block Island in 2016. But with just five of them, it’s not a commercial-scale wind farm.
Vineyard Wind submitted state and federal allocation plans to build an offshore wind farm in 2017. Massachusetts had committed to offshore wind by requiring its utilities to solicit proposals for up to 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind power through 2027.
Vineyard Wind would be much farther offshore than Cape Wind and would be the first large-scale wind power in federal waters.
In what may have been a fatal blow, federal regulators delayed Vineyard Wind by delaying the release of a key environmental impact in 2019. William Keating, D-Mass. , said at the time that the Trump administration was seeking to thwart the renewable energy allocation just as it was coming to fruition.
Biden’s address signed it on 2021. La structure began on land in Barnstable, Massachusetts. This spring, huge sections of towers from Portugal arrived at the Port of New Bedford to be assembled on the water.
New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell said Wednesday’s announcement is a “great way to kick off 2024.”
The 800-megawatt wind farm will force more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said it’s a clean, affordable force made imaginable by the many advocates, public servants, union staff and business leaders who have worked for decades toward this goal.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental policy is supported by several personal foundations. Learn more about AP’s climate initiative here. The PA is only for all content.