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The US Department of the Interior has given Vineyard Wind the go
ahead to start building what would be the nation's largest
commercial offshore wind facility to date by issuing a record of decision, which
spells out where and how many turbines can be installed.
With this decision in hand, Vineyard Wind now has the approval
to build and install 84 or fewer wind turbines for a total of 800
MW of capacity at a distance of about 12 nautical miles each from
the Massachusetts shorelines of Nantucket and Martha's
Vineyard.
Slated for completion in the second quarter of 2024, the
facility will meet 10% of Massachusetts' power needs, while giving
a huge boost to the Biden-Harris administration's goal of reaching
30 GW of offshore wind by the
end of the decade.
President Joe Biden has made offshore wind generation a key part
of plans to halve the nation's GHGs and to decarbonize the power
sector entirely by 2035.
With this announcement, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland
said "a clean energy future is within our grasp in the United
States," as she termed the approval of the project "an important
step" towards clean power generation.
Interior on the move
As of now, the US has only two offshore wind farms totaling 42
MW of capacity that are operational: the 30-MW, five-turbine Block
Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island waters; and the 12-MW, two-turbine
Dominion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project in federal
waters off Virginia.
IHS Markit data shows the US
has at least 21.9 GW of offshore wind projects in the pipeline
awaiting various approvals, including Vineyard Wind.
Interior's announcement follows less than a fortnight after the
agency said it was starting to prepare
an environmental impact statement for Revolution Wind's 880-MW
facility off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, which
IHS Markit data shows as coming online in 2025 if all the approvals
come in a timely fashion and construction starts on schedule.
Vineyard Wind has been trying to obtain federal approval for its
project since submitting an application in 2017, though its
experience across two presidential administrations is perhaps not
illustrative of how new applicants will be treated.
Under the Trump administration, Interior's Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management (BOEM) unit indicated the developer would have to
start the permitting process again because it was seeking to use a
larger turbine than identified in its original application, which
led Vineyard Wind to ask to withdraw its application in December
2020. Many observers saw this move by the prior administration as a
stalling tactic.
The Biden administration vowed to bring the project back on
track, starting with approval of the project's final
environmental impact analysis in early March.
At that time, the only step remaining between the actual start
of construction was the record of decision.
"It's been a long road to get to this point, but ultimately we
are reaching the end of this process with the strongest possible
project," said Lars Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind, in an 11 May
statement. Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid
Renewables, a subsidiary of Avangrid Inc., and Copenhagen
Infrastructure Partners.
In the record of decision for Vineyard, Interior said it will
allow the developer to construct and install 84 or few wind
turbines in 100 of the 106 locations that Vineyard Wind originally
proposed. With each turbine placed one nautical mile apart, the
agency said this preferred layout would have less visual impact and
consequently less impact on shore activities and recreation. This
preferred layout also would have less of an impact on navigation
and vessel traffic because the government was not allowing
placement of six turbines in the northern portion of the project,
which it said is closer to ports and other shore facilities
commonly used by recreational vessels.
Biden administration is serious
The pace at which construction of Vineyard Wind was approved is
proof "the administration is serious about moving offshore wind
projects forward," according to Rear Admiral (Ret.) Samuel De Bow,
who was involved in developing Rhode Island's special area zone
management plan as director of the University of Rhode Island's
Center Of Excellence in Research on Offshore Renewable Energy.
Calling Vineyard Wind's record of decision "an important
milestone for the offshore wind industry," said De Bow, who is
currently a senior adviser at the environmental and water
permitting firm of Dawson & Associates. "BOEM as the lead
federal agency on offshore wind has made it a priority and really
figured out how to get it done."
To support efforts to meet the 2030 target of 30 GW, BOEM in
late March said it anticipates initiating environmental reviews for
up to 10 additional projects later this year.
BOEM also said it will advance new lease sales and complete
reviews of at least 16 construction and operations plans by 2025,
which the Biden-Harris administration said represented more than 19
GW of capacity.
'Vital downpayment'
Wind group advocates were ecstatic over the announcement, with
Gregory Wetstone, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy,
calling the final approval "a vital down payment" on the goal of 30
GW by 2030.
De Bow said he is pretty confident the administration will reach
its 30 GW goal, pointing to the 1.1-GW Ocean Wind project that
Ørsted, a Danish energy company, and PSEG, an New Jersey-based
electric utility, have proposed to meet New Jersey's goal of
obtaining 7.5 GW of offshore wind by 2035.
The construction and operations plan for Ocean Wind is being
reviewed right now, and BOEM said it already has started preparing
an environmental impact statement for this project, De Bow
said.
BOEM also is involved in reviewing the construction and
operations plan of the 132-MW South Fork offshore project to be
built in Rhode Island Sound and supply power to Long Island Sound.
However, this project has run into some roadblocks over a
compensation agreement for fishermen. Rhode Island Governor Dan
McKee, a Democrat, has asked state regulators to give Ørsted and
Eversource more time to work out the agreement.
Offshore wind gathering momentum
While the majority of offshore wind activity is concentrated in
the Atlantic Coast, Oregon is moving ahead with studying the
potential of this renewable source.
By a 56-0 vote on 27 April, the House of Representatives in the
Oregon State Legislature approved a bill establishing a task
force to explore developing up to 3 GW of floating offshore wind
facilities, which are built in deeper waters than their
fixed-bottom offshore counterparts, thereby expanding the viable
area for wind energy development. The bill is now set to be
considered by the state Senate Committee on Energy and Environment,
which has scheduled a hearing on it for 13 May.
Heather Zichal, CEO of the nonprofit trade group American Clean
Power Association, said the US should take advantage of the
gathering momentum in the offshore wind space.
"Now is the time to push forward on offshore wind, catch up to
global competitors, and decarbonize our electric grid, so that the
US can deliver economic and environmental benefits to our citizens
and combat climate change," Zichal said 11 May.
Posted 11 May 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate and Energy Research Analyst