January 2024 saw the first operational turbine on the Vineyard Wind project deliver 5 megawatts of power to the New England electrical grid. The project began in 2022 and upon completion is projected to generate 800 megawatts of electricity, reducing carbon emissions by 1.6 million tons per year.
Outside of generating electricity, the project has created over 900 union jobs across the 2 years of construction, and contractors associated with the project have spend millions of dollars in Southeastern Massachusetts, and Massachusetts as a whole.
Beyond simple power generation, the Vineyard Wind project, and specifically the lawsuits against it may end up serving as a test for how National goals are approached when it comes to offshore wind. One of the lawsuits currently being appealed alleges that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to comply with the Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and National Environmental Policy Act in permitting the project. Wind Farms are alleged in general to be negatively impacting fragile ecosystems and impacting marine mammals (like right whales), and the allegation in the lawsuit is that was knowable and predictable information that should have been included in and.jpg?width=346&height=238&name=shutterstock_1818132590%20(1).jpg)
stalled the permitting process. The case is currently in appeal, but if Vineyard Wind is triumphant, it would set the precedent that offshore wind does not pose a substantial threat to marine ecosystems – however, should they lose, that makes offshore wind essentially a non-viable option for meeting renewable goals, and puts the prospective 16 permitted projects the Biden Administration would like to see happen in question.
I wrote an article for Oil & Energy Magazine detailing the project, lawsuits, and other wind projects along the East Coast – you can read that article here: Vineyard Wind Sending Power to the Grid
