Interior ordering supplemental study of Vineyard Wind project The Trump administration cast the fate of the nation’s first major offshore wind farm into doubt by extending an environmental review for the $2.8 billion Vineyard Wind project off Massachusetts.

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“Comments received from stakeholders and cooperating agencies requested a more robust cumulative analysis,” BOEM spokesman Tracey Moriarty said in an email. “Considering such comments, and taking into account recent state offshore wind procurement announcements, BOEM is expanding its cumulative analysis of projects within its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to also include projects that have been awarded power purchase agreements, but may not have submitted Construction and Operations Plans (COPs), and potential scenarios based on state procurements that are expected to be awarded.”

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The Alchemy Farm Neighborhood Association filed a complaint on the commercial use in their midst last fall, which prompted Falmouth Building Commissioner Rod Palmer to issue a cease-and-desist order for the solar operation on Feb. 6. Palmer also issued an order to dismantle a pole barn on the property.

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Responses ranged from hosting the turbines to purchasing them. There was also a single offer to purchase the base and leave it onsite for use in constructing a cell tower. The letters are a first step in moving the massive pair beyond town borders.

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The three electric distribution companies in Massachusetts have together issued a request for a second round of offshore wind energy, ...The utility companies are seeking a levelized price per megawatt-hour lower than the price settled on with Vineyard Wind in the first contract, as the law requires.

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Officials have started working toward moving two town-owned wind turbines beyond Falmouth’s borders Wednesday with publication of an advertisement in the Central Register seeking letters of interest from any public and private property owner “with enough land, wind resource and electrical interconnection capacity” to host one or both of the massive pair.

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“The Wall Street Journal published a scathing editorial on the experience of Falmouth, Massachusetts, which spent $10 million on wind turbines, and it’s been a disaster,” Rep. McClintock said at the hearing. “That small town went deeply into debt to finance them. The townspeople couldn’t bear the noise, the constant flickering of light as 400-foot windmills turned and property values plunged 20 percent. I wonder how that squares with the bright picture that you’ve painted.”

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Dellinger, a lobsterman, had said in December that “the industry doesn’t want a mitigation strategy.” “The whole process needs to slow down,” he said. “We’re in such a rush.” Among the points of contention is Vineyard Wind’s planned layout. Commercial fishermen want an east-west grid pattern but Vineyard Wind currently has a northeast-to-southwest grid plan.

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“The project team hasn’t heard anything from (the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) as the agency remains shuttered,” Vineyard Wind spokesman Scott Farmelant said. An email to a spokeswoman for the bureau generated an automatic response that she is out of the office and not authorized to work at this time because of the shutdown.

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Selectmen voted 4-0-1, with Selectman Samuel H. Patterson abstaining, to not relocate the turbines within the town. The board then voted unanimously to ask town administration to create requests for proposals to either leasing property outside of Falmouth to run the wind turbines, sell the turbines, or re-purposing a wind turbine tower as a cellphone and repeater tower.

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Falmouth Massachusetts – The town that once was host to Governor Deval Patrick’s flagship wind energy project on Cape Cod and the Islands pronounced the Falmouth turbines dead.

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The disassembly marks at least the third time in the last four years that the Applied turbine — the tallest of the three within the industrial park — has been shut down for an extended period of time.

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The town is contractually obligated to buy power from owners of the privately owned Wind 2 turbine. But that electricity, at $116/MWh, is twice the cost of the ELD’s averaged portolio ...“Therefore, if anything, the rates will experience some very limited relief from this event.”

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Weston and Sampson, engineers hired by the town to look at logistics and costs related to dismantlement and removal of the turbines, are scheduled to present their findings to selectmen Monday at 8 p.m., during the board’s regular meeting in Town Hall.

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 Barnstable and Vineyard Wind officials have signed a host community agreement that includes $16 million in payments to the town in return for the offshore wind energy developer landing a high-voltage electric power transmission cable at William H. Covell Memorial Beach rather than via a disputed route through Lewis Bay in West Yarmouth. But a final decision on the transmission cable route, the landing location and other details is still to be determined. 

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Funfar’s lawyer James Rosenblum argued that Wind 2 is the same make and model as Wind 1, and neither was ever issued a special permit from the zoning board. The lack of a special permit had never been legally challenged in court for Wind 2, as it had for Wind 1, “but that doesn’t mean Wind 2 is a legal structure,” Rosenblum said. “The structure had a legal building permit but doesn’t have a legal special permit and never did,” he said.

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Thousands of visitors and residents have signed a petition opposing an effort by offshore energy company Vineyard Wind to bring a high-wattage transmission cable through Lewis Bay and onshore in Yarmouth. ...A copy was given to Gov. Charlie Baker last week and to the Yarmouth selectmen at their meeting Tuesday, where Chairman Norman Holcomb told residents the board was open to hearing concerns.

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The town that said yes to wind power, then no, can now say goodbye to Minuteman Wind. The developer said Monday it will not go to court to fight the town's decision to deny it a building permit. 

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On April 5, Building Inspector Phil Delorey rejected the company's application for authorization to begin work to erect five turbines on West Hill, near the Hawley line, on land owned by Harold "Butch" Malloy. Though the project won backing from residents in 2008, sentiment has swung fully against wind energy in Savoy. Residents late last year voided a bylaw allowing commercial wind projects.

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