Recent demands by the U.S. Department of the Interior are delaying agency approval of the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm in the United States. The project under review is the Vineyard Wind project, an 800-megawatt wind farm off the shore of Massachusetts ("Vineyard Project"). While Europe has been leading the offshore wind charge with more than 105 wind farms (with capacity sizes ranging up to 650 megawatts) and a total of about 18,500 megawatts online, the offshore wind industry in the United States is a nascent industry, with only one 30-megawatt operational offshore wind farm, the Block Island Wind Farm. The sheer magnitude of the Vineyard Project, which is more than 26 times the capacity of the Block Island Wind Farm, makes it a monumental and groundbreaking project in the United States.
The permitting and approval process for offshore wind in the United States is a multistep, multiagency process that spans over 30 different agencies at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, approval must be obtained by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ("BOEM"), which is tasked with managing the development of offshore renewable energy in federal waters. The BOEM's project approval process requires an environmental review with an opportunity for public comment. Although the BOEM was initially expected to issue an environmental impact study for the Vineyard Project in July 2019, that timeline has been extended to late 2019 or early 2020 in response to demands from stakeholders and other federal agencies for a more comprehensive supplemental environmental impact study. The driving concern behind the supplemental environmental impact study is the cumulative effect the Vineyard Project and five adjacent wind farms would have on the nearby commercial fishing industry.
This delayed timeline, however, has not dissuaded the developers of the Vineyard Project from moving forward with the development of the $2.8 billion dollar project. Although they initially planned to start construction by the end of 2019 to take advantage of production tax credits, after the BOEM's determination that a supplemental environmental impact study was necessary, they determined simply to revise the project's timeline. In addition, they doubled down on their offshore wind gamble by submitting proposals to Massachusetts' electric distribution companies for Vineyard Wind 2, an offshore wind farm with a minimum capacity of 400 megawatts.
Because many states have recently issued commercial-scale offshore wind solicitations in an effort to meet aggressive clean energy goals (see "All Eyes on Offshore Wind—Will It Become a Reality in the United States?," The Climate Report, Summer 2018), they are also invested in the outcome of the BOEM's determination with respect to the Vineyard Project. Accordingly, governors of numerous coastal states including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Virginia have urged the BOEM to render its decision on the Vineyard Project approval by no later than March 2020, as further delay will have a negative impact not only on the Vineyard Project itself, but also on offshore wind development in the United States generally.
Thus, the federal, state, and local approval and permitting process for offshore wind here in the United States is proving to be not only lengthy, but also unpredictable. The Vineyard Project's approval process and unprecedented scale are laying the groundwork for numerous projects that will come after it. Now, developers, state representatives, and stakeholders must stand by to see if commercial-scale offshore wind can surpass these regulatory hurdles and become a thriving industry in the United States.
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