The Diplomat
Iberdrola has received the final environmental impact statement for its ‘mega offshore wind farm ‘Vineyard Wind 1’, which with a capacity of 800 megawatts (MW) will be the first large-scale project of this technology in the United States, reports Europa Press.
Specifically, this declaration by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for the project is the final step before the last approval required for construction of the farm to begin, said Avangrid, the US subsidiary of Iberdrola.
In this way, the government of the new president, Joe Biden, is accelerating a project that is key to the development of offshore wind power in the country. With this new step in the process, the final permit for the offshore wind farm will be granted within a month.
The project, with a planned investment of around USD 2.8 billion (around EUR 2.4 billion), is owned by Vineyard Wind, the joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
With the issuance of the impact statement, Vineyard Wind confirmed that the project remains on track to reach financial close in the second half of this year and begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.
Located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, it will be the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States and will supply enough electricity to power more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and create 3,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) job hours.
