As construction on the U.S.’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm started this week, another proposed for the waters south of the Vineyard said it hopes to sever its contracts.
On Wednesday, Vineyard Wind announced that it began work to install monopiles and transition pieces for its planned 62 turbines about 15 miles south of the Island, cementing the project literally into existence.
“We can finally say it — as of today, there is ‘steel in the water,’” Klaus Moeller, the Vineyard Wind CEO, wrote in a press release.
And while that project gets underway, other wind projects have had trouble getting off the ground and into the waters off the Vineyard.
Late last week, SouthCoast Wind — formerly Mayflower Wind — wrote to regulators in Rhode Island to say the company wanted to cancel its energy contracts and attempt to secure more money to build its planned 1,200-megawatt offshore wind farm south of the Vineyard.
The cost of building offshore wind projects has increased by more than 20 per cent since 2019, according to a report done by a third-party consultant and commissioned by SouthCoast.
The company concluded that its power-purchasing agreements were no longer financially viable due to significant and unforeseen rises in inflation, supply chain costs and financing costs, CEO Francis Slingsby said.
The company does still plan to pursue the project, Mr. Slingsby said, potentially bidding on energy contracts again in the future that would be more financially beneficial for the project.
“We remain steadfast that SouthCoast Wind is a much needed and viable project,” Mr. Slingsby said in a statement to the Gazette.
Commonwealth Wind, a third project that hopes to go south of the Vineyard, pulled a similar move late last year.
While these other projects jockey for position, the vessel Orion took a crew of piledrivers out from New Bedford to the Vineyard Wind lease site this week. The progress, which has proved hard for other projects, was praised by state officials.
“The offshore wind industry has officially landed in Massachusetts waters and we’re excited for what comes next,” Rebecca Tepper, the secretary for the state executive office of energy and environmental affairs, said Wednesday “Each of these 62 platforms form the foundation of our clean, affordable energy future.”
In an interview with the Gazette earlier this spring, Mr. Moeller said he hoped Vineyard Wind would have completed buildout by summer 2024. New Bedford is currently serving as the base of construction operations, but once built the Island would become the hub for the project.
Construction on a terminal and an operations and maintenance facility — both in Vineyard Haven — and a helicopter hangar at the Vineyard airport are all ongoing.
“In many ways, Martha’s Vineyard is playing a starring role in this first-in-the nation project,” Mr. Moeller said last month. “It’s not only where our company gets its name, it’s also going to be our long-term home for [operations and maintenance] for 30 years, creating good paying year-round jobs for Islanders.”
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