October 24, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A heavy-lift pier in this South Coast fishing port will see plenty of use as a staging area for the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.
Vineyard Wind on Monday signed a $6 million annual lease to use the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal for at least 18 months. The total comes to $9 million unless the lease is extended.
The 29-acre marine terminal, owned and operated by the quasi-public Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, was custom-built to support the construction, assembly, and transport of offshore wind components. It is equipped with mobile crane and load features “that rival the highest capacity ports in the world,” and also handles other large marine cargo, according to the agency.
Vineyard Wind in May won a state contest to provide Massachusetts utilities with 800 megawatts of clean power. It has leased a 160,000 acre federal area 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The company plans an underwater transmission cable that will land on Cape Cod.
Read the full story at MassLive