BARNSTABLE – Representatives from offshore wind energy developer Vineyard Wind held a public forum at Barnstable Town Hall Tuesday night.
The forum covered a number of topics, including the host community agreement between the company and the town, construction plans for a power station in between Covell’s Beach and Independence Park – which will connect to the Cape’s electrical grid in Hyannis, and the overall plans for the 84-turbine wind farm to be located in federal waters about 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard.
Vineyard Wind Manager of Development Policy Nick Mayo said the forum was also meant to give the local community an opportunity to explain intricacies of the project and how certain roadways may be affected.
“With all of the discussion of clean energy and about the project at large with offshore and larger things, we also want to be able to continue this dialogue we’ve been having with communities,” Mayo said.
“We just want to go the extra mile in terms of notification and having conversations about it.”
The construction at Covell’s Beach will ultimately produce the “landing spot” for the Vineyard Wind project. Mayo says that the beach will house the power station that takes the energy collected by the wind farm and connect it to the Cape’s energy grid.
“It’s going to be hosting essentially enough clean energy for 400,000 homes. The expectation is that construction will happen here in early 2020,” Mayo explained.
“There will be an HDD apparatus, which is a prescribed and minimally invasive installation technique for working in sensitive coastal resources. It drills deep under the beach. It’s about 30-feet below the tide line. That eliminates any impacts to the coastal, the dune grass or any other sensitive resources. We’ll have that big apparatus there for a few weeks and ultimately that’s a way of minimizing the need for trenching.”
Following the presentation, those who attended were given the opportunity to ask questions and field concerns of the project.
In late-February, the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council unanimously voted to approve the $2 billion wind farm.
The project still needs approval from Massachusetts regulators.
By TIM DUNN, CapeCod.com News Center
About CapeCod.com NewsCenter
