September 24, 2024 — A proposal to run underwater power lines from a Massachusetts offshore wind farm through Rhode Island waters is back before state regulators, following a 14-month pause.
The Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board voted unanimously Monday to resume consideration of SouthCoast Wind Energy LLC’s application to run transmission lines from its wind farm 30 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard up the Sakonnet River, over Portsmouth and out Mount Hope Bay to reach land in Somerset.
September 9, 2024 — Rhode Island is set to ramp up its supply of offshore wind power with the announcement Friday that the state is will procure 200 megawatts of capacity from a much larger project that would send most of its electricity to Massachusetts.
The 1,278-megawatt total project, known as SouthCoast Wind, would be the largest offshore wind farm to be built so far in the Atlantic Ocean waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Rhode Island would take only a small portion of the project’s power capacity, with the vast majority – 1,078 megawatts – going to Massachusetts.
September 9, 2024 — Massachusetts and Rhode Island announced the winners of their joint offshore wind auction on Friday. The three projects selected will be built south of Nantucket and collectively produce up to 2,878 megawatts of electricity — or about what it takes to power 1.6 million homes.
While this total is less than half of what the states originally sought to procure, it helps bring them closer to their legally binding offshore wind targets.
Connecticut, which was also part of the multi-state effort to solicit proposals, did not select any bids on Friday, but left the door open to doing so in the future. In a statement, a spokesperson for the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the state was still evaluating projects and would announce “a final decision” about its solicitation “at a future date.”
When the three states announced their partnership, they had hoped to procure 6,800 megawatts of power — Massachusetts wanted 3,600 megawatts, Connecticut wanted 2,000 megawatts and Rhode Island wanted 1,200.
Though they missed that target, Massachusetts officials touted the bids as great news, noting that it is the largest offshore wind procurement to date in New England.
“We’re going big,” Gov. Maura Healey said at a press conference Friday. “These projects will help create a stronger economy, massive economic development, and importantly, lower electricity costs for our residents and our businesses.”
September 3, 2024 — The Danish offshore wind developer that owns America’s first offshore wind farm and is building a second, much larger wind project off the Rhode Island coast is expanding its presence in the Ocean State.
Ørsted is moving its office in Providence, one of two co-headquarters for the company’s U.S. operations, into a new 17,470-square-foot space at 500 Exchange St. to accommodate a growing staff that is expected to more than double in the next few years.
The move from a smaller Exchange Terrace office comes not only as the company moves ahead with construction of Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine wind farm on which it is partnering with utility Eversource, but also just before the announcement of a decision that could see its investment in Southern New England grow even larger.
September 3, 2024 — One of the city’s volunteer advisory commissions was accused of censorship after denying an offer to put opponents of current offshore wind farm projects as experts on a series of educational panels on climate change and offshore wind.
While offshore wind opponents, including Councilor David Carlin, argued that the educational panel’s lack of offshore wind opponents made the series unbalanced and unfair, Carlin’s resolution to sponsor a panel of anti-offshore wind speakers was shot down by the rest of City Council for being outside the council’s jurisdiction.
In a statement regarding the response from the community and Carlin’s resolution, the commission said the events were designed to be “educational and informational” engagements with experts from their field, not a debate or public hearing.
August 27, 2024 — As concerns mount over the July collapse of one Vineyard Wind turbine blade, a “flotilla” of about two dozen commercial and recreational fishing vessels steamed to the wind farm on Sunday to protest offshore wind development and its impact on the marine ecosystem.
The vessels, hoisting anti-offshore wind flags and blasting air horns, departed early Sunday morning from ports in New Bedford, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Rhode Island and along the Cape, converging at about noon on the site of the crippled Vineyard Wind turbine.
“The blade collapse was an eye-opener to a lot of people who before didn’t know that offshore wind is a disaster for the ocean,” said Shawn Machie, 54, who is captain of the New Bedford scalloper F/V Capt. John.
On July 13, one of the three blades on turbine AW38 sustained damage while undergoing testing. Five days later, a 300-foot section of the blade collapsed into the water leaving fiberglass debris floating in fishing grounds and scattered across beaches, mostly on Nantucket. It marked an inflection point as the first industrial energy incident in this era of offshore wind development in waters off the Northeast coast.
August 23, 2024 — In response to recent concerns over offshore wind and with debris washing up on Nantucket and Island beaches from a fractured turbine blade, the New England Fisherman’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has organized a “flotilla” for this Sunday, bringing fishing boats together to peacefully protest in unison against the offshore wind industry.
Boats will be joining together in a “boat parade” from various areas of the east coast, said NEFSA founder and CEO Jerry Leeman, including the Vineyard, Nantucket, parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and potentially New Jersey.
August 23, 2024 — Newport’s Energy & Environment Commission concluded its three-part series about offshore wind on Aug. 15, with moderator Avery Robertson leading panelists representing Climate Action Rhode Island’s Yes to Wind campaign, the Iron Workers Local 37 union, and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management in a discussion about the ethics and economics of offshore wind development.
Nick Horton, a volunteer with Climate Action Rhode Island, opened his remarks by asking the audience to raise their hands if they considered themselves environmentalists, whether they cared about whales, and if they cared about the health of Rhode Island’s fisheries now and in the future. Most people raised their hands to all three. He then asked the room to raise their hands if they planned on cutting their personal energy usage by 90 percent within the next few years. Nobody raised their hand.
He proceeded to make the point that Rhode Island’s grid is largely dependent upon the fracking of natural gas in other states as its main power source. Horton said he supports the industrial scale development of offshore wind not only because it provides an alternative to modes of fossil fuel production, such as fracking, which negatively impact the environment, but also because the pollution caused by fracking and coal-fired power plants increases cancer rates and other health issues in other communities.
July 15, 2024 — The fishing industry is seeing progress towards a promising future.
Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee announced a major contribution to a newly completed commercial fishing pier in the Port of Galilee on Tuesday.
“The fishing industry is an important part of our economy,” McKee said.
According to the Governor, Rhode Island is ranked fourth in terms of fishing value on the East Coast and 18th in the country.
According to Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, Galilee is the home port of 240 fishing vessels and crews.
June 12, 2024 — The governments of the U.S. states of Maine and Rhode Island are providing grant funding to help promote and market the states’ seafood – adding to growing efforts to create marketing bodies promoting seafood consumption.
A grant from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development’s Domestic Trade Grant Program – which was funded by the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan signed by Maine Governor Janet Mills and the American Rescue Plan Act signed by U.S. President Joe Biden – will help establish a new Maine Seafood Promotional Council. The council, which is being led by FocusMaine and guided by input from the seafood industry, recently launched and is gearing up for a two-year pilot phase, FocusMaine said in a press release.