Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID, Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), broke ground on Vineyard Wind 1, the nation’s first commercial scale offshore wind farm.

The 800-megawatt (MW) project, located 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, will generate electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, create 3,600 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) job years, save customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation, and is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually. 

A ceremony to commemorate the event was held at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable, the site where two cables will make landfall and connect to the grid at a substation further inland on Cape Cod. 

The event was attended by approximately 200 people, all observing appropriate COVID protocols, including Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Governor Charlie Baker, Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Kathleen Theoharides, State House Speaker Ron Mariano, Senator Julian Cyr, Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen, Senior Partner & Co-founder of CIP Christian T. Skakkebæk, Head of Iberdrola’s Global Renewables Business, Xabier Viteri, CEO of AVANGRID Dennis V. Arriola, as well as other state and local officials and community advocates.

The project will utilize 62, 13MW General Electric Haliade-X wind turbines that will be connected to an offshore substation, where the power will be transferred to two export cables that will make landfall at Covell’s beach and connect to the grid at an inland substation.  As a result of the cable laying, the Town of Barnstable and Vineyard Wind are collaborating on a long-awaited sewer improvement project, saving the town millions of dollars.

Vineyard Wind 1 will begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.