Offshore wind backers vying for state support

FRAMINGHAM – While prospects are growing dim for the Cape Wind project to take shape in Nantucket Sound, advocates for offshore wind say the technology still has untold potential to create new jobs and satisfy the region’s energy needs.

Three major players in the renewable energy industry are angling to develop wind farms south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, on ocean tracts that lie about 15 to 25 miles off the Massachusetts coast.

Advocates say the projects could kickstart a new wind energy industry in Massachusetts that would rejuvenate port cities such as New Bedford and Fall River and bring with it as many as 18,000 jobs.

They now hope to convince lawmakers to make offshore wind energy a priority in the future, giving investors the incentive to finance construction of expensive new wind turbines off the coast.

"It is the Saudi Arabia of wind,” Matthew Morrissey, executive director of the new trade group Offshore Wind: Massachusetts, said of the vast blue expanse off the state’s coast. “It is globally one of the most attractive and productive wind resources that exists.”

The legacy of Cape Wind – envisioned as the country's first offshore wind farm – looms large in Massachusetts.

In development for 15 years, the project suffered a major setback in January when two large utilities pulled their support for the $2.5 billion wind farm. Cape Wind was also dogged for years by opposition from residents, who argued it would alter the view from the shore.

Morrissey watched the process unfold as a former director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council. During a meeting Wednesday with the editorial board of the MetroWest Daily News, Morrissey said one of the most significant challenges facing the industry in Massachusetts is convincing residents to disassociate wind energy from Cape Wind, which faces an uncertain future.

Turbine technology has made rapid advances since Cape Wind was first permitted, Morrissey said, allowing turbines to operate more efficiently and generate more power.

New wind farms proposed south of Cape Cod would also be much farther from the coastline – at least 15 miles. While the structures would rise about 600 feet from the ocean’s surface and be fitted with turbines wide enough to span the length of Fenway Park, they would appear as nothing more than “fuzz on the horizon” on clear days, Morrissey said.

“When you start there, siting is no longer an issue, fundamentally,” he said.

Advocates now hope to convince lawmakers of the merits of wind energy, one piece of a comprehensive energy bill pending on Beacon Hill. Rep. Patricia Haddad, D-Somerset, filed legislation in January that calls on the state to diversify its energy portfolio. One component of the bill would require utilities to buy 2,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy – enough to power about 2 million homes – over the next five to 10 years.

Offshore wind backers say that kind of policy directive is necessary to spur development of new wind farms because investors won’t otherwise have the assurance their loans will be repaid.

The energy debate comes as the region prepares to replace thousands of megawatts of energy from existing power plants that are slated to close. ISO New England, the region’s power grid operator, predicts New England will need to add 8,300 megawatts of energy generating capacity over the next five to seven years to meet demand.

Among the facilities going offline is Brayton Point, a 1,600-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Somerset slated to close in 2017. Morrissey said new wind farms could tie into the existing infrastructure and power lines around the plant, ultimately saving money for ratepayers.

Advocates say wind farms could also bring new skilled manufacturing jobs. While the industry has matured in Europe, transporting infrastructure across the Atlantic Ocean would be costly; shipping a single wind turbine would cost in the range of $550,000, Morrissey said, giving manufacturers the incentive to establish a headquarters in the region.

Globally, the median salary for wind energy workers with at least five years’ experience is about $80,000, said Bob Unger, former editor of The Standard-Times in New Bedford.

Unger, who is now a consultant for the New Bedford Wind Energy Center, said 60-70 percent of those jobs would not require a college degree.

“There is no other technology in the state, energy technology, that has the potential to produce jobs and economic activity the way that this does,” Unger said.

There are now 75 wind farms operating in Europe and Scandinavia, some of which are generating electricity for as little as 14 cents per kilowatt hour. They far outperform the smaller wind turbines envisioned for Cape Wind, which would operate at about 24.5 cents per kilowatt hour, Morrissey said.
Advocates must now shift perceptions in the state, which have been shaped for more than a decade by the stagnating project off the coast of Cape Cod.

“All we have to do is look to Europe to see what happened there,” Morrissey said.