Vineyard Wind announced that it broke ground on Vineyard Wind 1, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.
Developers said the 800-megawatt installation, 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts, save customers $1.4 billion in the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, Mass., where two cables will make landfall and connect to the grid farther inland on Cape Cod.
“Many people have worked extremely hard to make today possible, a day where we turn forward thinking into action,” Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen said in a statement. “By focusing on our ultimate goal — developing clean, cost-effective energy that will cut carbon pollution and create thousands of jobs in the process — we never lost sight of what mattered most, and we ultimately have a better project as a result.”
The project will comprise 62, 13-megawatt General Electric Haliade-X wind turbines connected to an offshore substation, where the power will be transferred to two export cables that will make landfall at on Cape Cod and connect to the grid at an inland substation.
Vineyard Wind 1 is expected to begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.
Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Soundings Trade Only has previously reported on the project and its impacts on boating and fishing.
