Nantucket-group rides Trump's anti-wind wave with renewed attack on Vineyard
Long time sector foes ACK for Whales sees momentum in administration's sudden halt of Empire Wind to shut down CIP-Avangrid's flagship array
Although Nantucket-based civic group ACK for Whales failed to stop US flagship offshore wind array Vineyard Wind 1 in the US Supreme Court, it is now looking directly to the Trump administration to halt development.
In stopping the project, which was still in onshore construction, Burgum referenced President Donald Trump’s executive order of 20 January that put even permitted arrays under review with the aim of “termination or amendment”.
Burgum’s order to suspend Empire cited “serious deficiencies in analyses and rushed approvals,” noted ACK in its 9-page letter to federal regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
“Vineyard Wind 1, subject to the same highly expedited process, is replete with analytic deficiencies,” the group claimed, adding it “Respectfully requests the reopening, reanalysis, and revocation of the Revised Construction and Operations Plan for Vineyard Wind 1.”
BOEM is under the authority of the Department of the Interior (DoI).
The 800MW project, owned in a joint venture by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Iberdrola’s Avangrid, is the first US array to be fully permitted and enter construction in its lease area 15 miles (24 km) off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Vineyard is contracted to sell its power to Massachusetts.
BOEM’s sister agency Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) shut down construction for months while the mishap was investigated.
Vineyard was also required to submit a revised construction and operations plan (COP) to account for steps taken to minimize risks of further mishaps that was approved by the regulators 17 January, days before Trump’s inauguration.
“The government HEARD and RESPONDED to the PEOPLE and put a stop to Empire Wind this week,” ACK wrote in a letter urging people to reach out to federal regulators to demand a halt to Vineyard.
Stop-work at Empire followed the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency scuttling of EDF’s 1.5GW Atlantic Shores to New Jersey by pulling its Clean Air permit.
BloombergNEF said in a note that Trump’s move to target “a project under construction for the first time — will spook the owners of other under-construction US offshore wind projects”, including Orsted, Dominion, Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
“It puts at risk billions of dollars of investments already committed,” the consultancy noted.
Research consultancy ClearView Energy Partners remains optimistic that projects further along in construction, including Vineyard, may be spared the Trump axe.
“Burgum seems to be pursuing a bifurcated approach to offshore wind in which the Administration will allow a few projects in advanced stages of development (i.e., significant construction completed) to move forward even as others—including fully permitted ones like Empire Wind—do not,” ClearView said in a note to clients.