Vineyard Wind 1 has reached full commercial operations, a final milestone in a years-long project that’s experienced multiple setbacks along the way.
“On Thursday, October 29, Vineyard Wind 1 reached full commercial operations, further strengthening New England’s energy supply,” Craig Gilvarg, a Vineyard Wind spokesperson, said in a statement.
A wind farm reaches full commercial operations when every turbine is commissioned, or tested, and is fully online. That means that every turbine should spin, except when taken offline for maintenance.
The project, first selected by Massachusetts in 2018, has experienced rough seas for almost a decade — from a blade that broke off one turbine located at the southernmost tip of the lease area and littered debris on the Cape and Islands to a stop-work order by the current federal administration that paused work for a month. A contractor even threatened to walk out on the project. The project, 15 miles south of the Vineyard, didn’t finish construction on the 62 turbines until March, years after completion was projected.
Announcement of the project’s milestone comes as Revolution Wind, another turbine off the coast of the Island, also reached commercial operations.
Typically when a project reaches full commercial operations, the electricity starts to be sold at a fixed price on the regional open energy market, based on power purchase agreements between the energy producer and buyer like a utility company.
The 20-year contracts between Vineyard Wind and state utilities, National Grid USA, Eversource Energy, and Unitil Corp., however, were activated in April and any energy produced from commissioned turbines was sold since then at a fixed price average of $69.50 per megawatt-hour. (One megawatt can serve about 750 to 1,000 homes in New England; a megawatt-hour can serve 1,000 homes for one hour.)
Another celebratory headline, but what exactly is new? Vineyard Wind’s 62 turbines were installed by March. The project was producing electricity long before this announcement, and its 20-year utility contracts took effect in April. October 29 marks final commissioning, not the first power delivered to New England.
This is a roughly $4.5 billion industrial installation 15 miles off our coast. Its advertised 800-megawatt capacity is maximum output, not electricity produced around the clock. Massachusetts projects $1.4 billion in customer savings over 20 years, but those are forecasts, not verified household savings.
We’ve already had a 2024 blade failure that scattered fiberglass and foam onto Nantucket beaches, leading to a $10.5 million settlement between Nantucket and GE Vernova. Federal investigators have warned of gaps in offshore-wind oversight and uncertainty over cumulative environmental impacts.
Where are the public figures showing actual electricity delivered, turbine downtime, ratepayer savings, impacts on marine life, and long-term maintenance and removal costs? Commercial fishermen deserve transparent information about disruptions to their livelihoods, too.
I’m not dismissing the electricity being generated. I’m questioning whether “fully operational” is being mistaken for “problem solved.”
The real story begins after the celebration.