BOSTON – The Obama administration said Wednesday it has approved Cape Wind, the long-stalled proposal for an offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, setting the stage for the first such development in American waters.
Cape Wind Associates LLC plans to construct 130 turbines capable of generating up to 420 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 200,000 homes, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
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Salazar said Cape Wind would be “the first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast.” He was joined for the announcement by Gov. Deval L. Patrick, a longtime supporter of both Cape Wind and President Barack Obama.
The turbines – to be manufactured by Germany’s Siemens AG, which says it will open an office in Boston to handle the project – would rise 400 feet above the seabed in a 25-square-mile area north of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
The $1 billion project, first announced in 2001, drew opposition from nearby residents, including the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., American Indian groups and some businesses.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Salazar’s decision “was a long time in coming,” while U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., called it “misguided.”
Salazar’s approval for Cape Wind came with a few stipulations, including requirements for more archeological studies, fewer turbines (the total number was reduced to 130 from 170) and design modifications to reduce the impact on ocean views.
The Federal Aviation Administration still needs to sign off on Cape Wind, because the turbines could affect signals between airplanes and air-traffic control towers. The project won state and local approval last year.
Cape Wind Associates said it hopes to start construction by the end of this year and begin generating electricity from the turbines in 2012 or 2013.
However, the federal government’s decision is likely to be challenged in the courts by the project’s opponents.
“Going first is never easy and Cape Wind is proud of the role we played in raising awareness for what will become a major component of our energy future and in helping the United States develop a regulatory framework for this new exciting industry,” Cape Wind Associates President Jim Gordon said in a statement.
The United States has no offshore wind farms in operation right now, although it leads the world in land-based wind farms.
Since 1991, eight countries have installed offshore wind farms: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, according to the American Wind Energy Association. France, Italy, Norway, Poland and Spain also have plans to install offshore wind by 2015.
Deepwater Wind LLC has proposed two wind farms off Rhode Island – a small project off Block Island and a larger, 100-turbine development in Rhode Island Sound that could generate up to 384 megawatts of electricity.
But Deepwater’s plans were thrown into doubt last month when the R.I. Public Utilities Commission voted down a proposed power purchase agreement between Deepwater and National Grid Plc. The commissioners said the projected cost of electricity from the wind farm was too high.
Cape Wind is still negotiating its own power purchase agreement with National Grid. “Our negotiations are going very well and we are optimistic that we will have more to say about our progress in the near future,” National Grid President Tom King said in a statement Wednesday that hailed Salazar’s decision.
Additional information is available at capewind.org.
So much for that opportunity.