Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), has selected GE as the preferred supplier of wind turbine generators for its Vineyard Wind 1 project, the first utility-scale offshore wind installation in the United States.
GE’s colossal Haliade-X turbines are the world’s largest and most powerful in operation to date for this type of installation. Standing 853 ft (260 m) high, each one can power a home for two days with one spin.
Vineyard Wind 1 is the largest offshore wind farm currently being developed in the United States. The project will place a number of these monster turbines some 15 miles off the South coast of Martha’s Vineyard, an island off Massachusetts. It will have a capacity of 800 MW, which will be able to meet the energy needs of over 400,000 homes in New England, expecting to become active some time in 2023.
It is also expected that the Vineyard Wind 1 project will reduce carbon emissions by over 1.6 million tons per year, the equivalent to withdrawing 325,000 vehicles from the roads. Besides, during the life of the project, a total of $3,700 million will be saved in energy costs in the region of New England.
The Haliade-X offshore wind turbine features a 13 MW or 12 MW capacity, 220-meter rotor, a 107-meter blade, and digital capabilities. One Haliade-X, 13 MW turbine, can generate up to 64 to 74 GWh of gross annual energy production under perfect conditions, saving up to 52,000 metric tons of CO2. The combination of a bigger rotor, longer blades, and higher capacity factor makes Haliade-X less sensitive to wind speed variations, increasing predictability and the ability to generate more power at low wind speeds.
“The selection of GE as our preferred turbine supplier means that a historic American company will play a vital role in the development of the first commercial-scale offshore wind power in the U.S.,” said Vineyard Wind CEO Lars T. Pedersen. “This is a huge moment not only for the future of our project but also for the future of an industry that is poised for exponential growth in the coming decades.“
The Company expects its review to take several weeks, after which Vineyard Wind will resume the Federal permitting process with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). With buffer built into the project schedule, Vineyard Wind still expects to reach financial close in the second half of 2021 and to begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023.
