Massachusetts is set to take another step forward on offshore wind before the presidential inauguration, which is now 10 days away.
Developers and the state’s utility companies appear to be moving ahead with new commitments, even as President-elect Donald Trump vows not to allow the construction of more offshore wind turbines.
Avangrid and Ocean Winds are scheduled to sign contracts with utilities Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil next Wednesday, for wind farms selected in a competitive bidding process last year.
The projects are Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 and Ocean Winds’ SouthCoast Wind.
Both will be located south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, with the former sending power ashore at Craigville Beach in Barnstable and the latter at Brayton Point in Somerset.
The two wind farms have already received federal approval under President Joe Biden.
A third proposal, for Vineyard Wind 2, was initially selected but will not get a contract in this round. That’s because Massachusetts chose it on the condition that another buyer — most likely Connecticut or Rhode Island, which were involved in a joint solicitation with Massachusetts — buy one-third of the wind farm’s power.
Neither state agreed to do so.
Vineyard Wind 2 does not yet have federal approval.
What, if anything, Trump will do about already-approved wind farms remains to be seen.
He reiterated his opposition to offshore wind on Tuesday, during the same press conference at which he said he would not rule out using military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“We’re going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built,” he said.
Prices for electricity in the Massachusetts power-purchase agreements are not yet public. The contracts must be submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities by Feb. 25 for approval, after which that information becomes public.
This story was originally published by CAI. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
