Cape Wind Associates Surrenders Lease; 16-Year Saga Comes to an End

YARMOUTH PORT — Cape Wind Associates last week abandoned its long-stalled plans for a wind farm on Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound.

The company notified the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that it has ceased operations and was surrendering its federal lease for 46 square miles between the Cape and Islands.

Company vice president Dennis Duffy disclosed the official notice Friday.

Cape Wind proposed the nation’s first offshore wind farm with a 130-turbine project 16 years ago.

While it was scheduled to be the first offshore wind farm in the country, another project off Block Island, Rhode Island went on line first.

The Cape Wind project was dealt major setbacks including the termination of critical agreements with utility companies in 2015.

Both Eversource and National Grid cancelled their agreements when Cape Wind failed to get required financing secured.

Audra Parker, head of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound that opposed the project, praised the news.

“It has been a very long and very expensive fight and we are thrilled that we are at this point now,” Parker said. “With Cape Wind done we can devote our attention to securing long-term protection of Nantucket Sound so that we’re not faced with another industrial development like this in the future.”

The alliance and others appealed a federal decision last week reaffirming Cape Wind’s lease through 2041. That lease was first issued in 2010.