Mass. selects Avangrid for new offshore wind project

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By Zachary Vasile

Orange-based energy services firm Avangrid, the parent company of United Illuminating Co., has been picked to build a new offshore wind project for Massachusetts.

In a statement, the utility said Massachusetts officials selected their proposal for a 1,232 megawatt turbine farm — the largest proposed in New England to date — as part of the state’s competitive wind energy procurement process.

The project, now known as Commonwealth Wind, would create approximately 11,000 jobs over its lifetime and supply enough electricity to power 750,000 homes, according to Avangrid. The company plans to make the city of New Bedford, located on Massachusetts’s southwest coast, the staging area and eventual command center for the offshore wind farm.

“Commonwealth Wind will power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Massachusetts with clean energy, creating thousands of local jobs across the supply chain,” said Ignacio Galan, chairman and CEO of Avangrid parent company Iberdrola. “It will also be a key project in helping the U.S. to achieve [its] 30 GW offshore wind target by 2030.”

Avangrid is already working on two major offshore wind projects in the Northeast: Vineyard Wind, an 800 MW facility expected to be built about 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, and Park City Wind, a proposed 840 MW turbine array that would channel power to Connecticut users.

Avangrid is partnering with Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners on both of those projects.