The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has approved the SouthCoast Wind Project, expected to generate up to 2.4GW of offshore wind energy for Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The project is the 11th commercial-scale offshore wind project approved under the Joe Biden administration.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said: “The approval of the SouthCoast Wind Project today demonstrates the strength of our collaborative process to deploy offshore wind.”
BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein said: “As we mark this achievement, we look forward to the meaningful economic opportunities the SouthCoast Wind Project will bring to this region, both during construction and throughout the project’s lifetime.”
The project area covers approximately 127,388 acres and about 26 nautical miles (nm) south of Martha’s Vineyard and 20 nm south of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
The project, as approved, calls for up to 141 turbines and up to five offshore substations, with as many as eight export cables making landfall in Brayton Point or Falmouth, Massachusetts.
BOEM removed up to six turbines from the northeastern portion of SouthCoast Wind’s original proposal to reduce potential impacts on foraging habitat and potential displacement of wildlife from this habitat adjacent to Nantucket Shoals.
In September, the state of Massachusetts awarded the first phase of SouthCoast Wind a PPA for 1087MW and neighbouring Rhode Island agreed to purchase 200MW of the project.