Vineyard Wind Breaks Ground on Nation’s First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Farm

A historic grounding breaking ceremony held for Vineyard Wind 1, the United States’ first large-scale offshore wind farm.

Vineyard Wind has broken ground on its Vineyard Wind 1 project, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. The 800-megawatt (MW) project, located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts.

A ceremony to commemorate the event was held at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, the site where two cables will make landfall and connect to the grid at a substation further inland on Cape Cod.

Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. (NYSE: AGR), and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). The ground breaking ceremony was attended by pproximately 200 people, including Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Governor Charlie Baker, Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides, State House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senator Julian Cyr, Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen, Senior Partner & 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.

“Many people have worked extremely hard to make today possible, a day where we turn forward thinking into action,” said Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen. “From the environmental and community activists to our elected leadership at the local, state and federal level, it’s taken all of us, pulling in the same direction and not being deterred by setbacks both large and small. By focusing on our ultimate goal – developing clean, cost-effective energy that will cut carbon pollution and create thousands of jobs in the process – we never lost sight of what mattered most, and we ultimately have a better project as a result. I want to thank everyone for their commitment to and belief in this industry and look forward to celebrating many more milestones in the months ahead.”

The Vineyard Wind 1 project will utilize 62 13MW GE Haliade-X wind turbines that will be connected to an offshore substation, where the power will be transferred to two export cables and connect to the grid at an inland substation.

Vineyard Wind has contracted U.S.-based arm of Belgian marine services provider DEME to transport and install the wind turbine generators using a combination of Jones Act-qualified feeder ships, provided by Foss Maritime, and a foreign-flagged Wind Turbine Installation vessel.

Under the Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the Southeast Massachusetts Building Trades, the work being done on site is using local union labor. The PLA ensures that at least 500 of the jobs created during the construction phase of the project will be filled by local tradespeople and includes aggressive hiring targets for women and black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).

Vineyard Wind 1 will begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.