Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), has broken ground on Vineyard Wind 1. The 800-MW project, located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, US, will generate electricity for more than 400 000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers US$1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million tpy, the equivalent of taking 325 000 cars off the road annually.
A ceremony to commemorate the event was held at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, Massachusetts, the site where two cables will make landfall and connect to the grid at a substation further inland on Cape Cod.
The event was attended by approximately 200 people, all observing appropriate COVID-19 protocols, including Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Governor Charlie Baker, State House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senator Julian Cyr, Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen, Senior Partner and Co-founder of CIP Christian T. Skakkebæk, Head of Iberdrola’s Global Renewables Business, Xabier Viteri, CEO of AVANGRID Dennis V. Arriola, as well as other state and local officials and community advocates.
The project will utilise 62, 13 MW General Electric Haliade-X turbines that will be connected to an offshore substation, where the power will be transferred to two export cables that will make landfall at Covell’s beach and connect to the grid at an inland substation. As a result of the cable laying, the Town of Barnstable and Vineyard Wind are collaborating on a long-awaited sewer improvement project, saving the town millions of dollars.
Vineyard Wind 1 will begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.
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Energy Global's Autumn 2021 issue
The Autumn issue of Energy Global features a varied spectrum of in-depth technical articles detailing recent projects, future projections, and technological advancements in the renewables sector, from companies including MISTRAS Group, Fugro, X1 Wind, Sulzer, and more.