April 11, 2018 — Fishing industry representatives from all along the East Coast sent an urgent missive to Governor Charlie Baker on Monday, asking him to delay this month’s selection of the company that will construct the nation’s first industrial-scale offshore wind project off the coast of Massachusetts.
The National Coalition of Fishing Communities (NCFC) cites three key concerns: the project size, the lack of study on potential impacts, and a lack of communication with the fishing industry from potential developers.
Three companies have bid to construct wind farms in the ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard, as part of a roughly 1,600-megawatt procurement mandated by a 2016 energy diversification law.
One of the companies, Vineyard Wind, has proposed projects capable of generating 400 megawatts or 800 megawatts. Vineyard Wind is a partnership between Vineyard Power, Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables.
There are two other companies in the running: Deepwater Wind, which built America’s first offshore wind farm near Block Island, R.I., and Bay State Wind, a partnership between Denmark-based Ørsted and Eversource.
Read the full story at the Martha’s Vineyard Times