Vineyard Wind Hosts Hyannis Open House

Erich Stephens, Vineyard Wind

HYANNIS – Vineyard Wind hosted the third in a series of community open house meetings in Hyannis Monday night, allowing area residents the opportunity to meet with project staff and hear more about the proposal.

The company hopes to construct an 800-megawatt offshore wind facility in Federal waters approximately 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket and approximately 34 miles south of the mainland Cape.

From a meeting room at The Cape Codder Resort, Vineyard Wind representatives heard concerns, questions, and ideas regarding their proposal to construct the large, utility-scale wind energy project.

“We’re hearing a lot of support for renewable energy here on the Cape,” said Eric Stevens, Chief Development Officer for Vineyard Wind.

“You know, with the recent storm, people are seeing the water washing over the Cape, literally. They realize that climate change, sea level rise is real and it’s going to affect areas like Cape Cod before other areas.”

Among the concern presented was that nitrogen loading within Lewis Bay could be exacerbated by the undersea power lines from the turbines, which the company would need to bring ashore in either Yarmouth or Barnstable.

“It’s been a good opportunity for us to hear about these concerns,” said Stevens, “We’re going to take back and think about it. You know, we know we can cause these problems but we can at least make sure we don’t exacerbate them.”

Officials say that the project will generate enough electricity to power over 400,000 homes and have already submitted the key federal and state permit applications.

If all goes according to plan, the project is on track to start in-state construction in 2019, which would make the project the first commercial large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, and bring the commonwealth closer to its renewable energy goals.

Prior to filing the proposal to the state, Vineyard Wind was the first of several competing projects to apply for federal and state construction permits.

By  DAVID BEATTY, CapeCod.com NewsCenter

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