Plans announced this week to build an offshore wind farm off Rhode Island have leapfrogged Cape Wind as the largest proposed facility in the country.

The Rhode Island-based wind developer Deepwater Wind announced on Wednesday that it is planning to build a 1,000 megawatt, 200-turbine facility in the waters off southern New England dubbed the Deepwater Energy Center. At its closest the facility will be 14 miles from Martha’s Vineyard according to The Boston Globe, though the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental affairs could not confirm those numbers yesterday. According to Deepwater, most of the turbines will be 20 to 25 miles offshore. Construction is planned to start in 2014 with the first turbines operational by the following year.

Also Deepwater Wind announced that it will develop a regional transmission network that will connect the new facility to Rhode Island, Long Island and Massachusetts.

For weeks representatives from Rhode Island and Massachusetts have been meeting with members of the Vineyard community to discuss the progress of the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan, a heavily-studied area opened to wind development. At the Nov. 18 meeting Islanders were stunned to learn there were currently two wind farm proposals before the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Representatives from Rhode Island met last night with Vineyarders to discuss the proposal and this morning members of the Rhode Island/Massachusetts offshore wind joint task force meet with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

In a press release issued by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, outgoing Secretary Ian Bowles emphasized that the project would go forward only with the consent of Massachusetts.

“Massachusetts stakeholders are now involved in the planning process for these waters with Rhode Island and the federal government, and we look forward to getting more details on this proposal,” he said in a press release. “No project will go forward without the agreement of both governors, and the states sharing economic benefits equitably.”