Iberdrola Starts Commissioning Vineyard Wind I, the Largest Offshore Wind Farm in the U.S.

Iberdrola has started to commission the Vineyard Wind I offshore wind farm – the first large-scale project of this technology in the United States. The facility, with 806 MW of capacity, has already begun to supply green energy to Massachusetts, a state that will be supplied with wind energy to more than 400,000 homes – that’s the equivalent of more than half the size of a city like Boston or the entire island of Palma de Mallorca.

The Vineyard Wind I project  –which is expected to have five turbines operating at full capacity by the beginning of the year– has had 3 billion dollars in investment (more than 2.7 billion euros at the current exchange rate) secured through contracts with the state's three main electric utilities. The wind farm began construction in 2021 and will be fully operational in 2024. By this time, it will prevent the emission of more than 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 per year, the equivalent of removing 325,000 vehicles from the road.

Each of the turbines –whose transition pieces have been manufactured in Avilés by the Asturian company Windar Renovables– is capable of providing energy to more than 6,000 homes and businesses. Each of these turbines comprises a tower, three blades, and a nacelle, and they have a rated capacity of 13 megawatts (MW), making it the largest turbine in the Western world. A single rotation generates energy for a home in Massachusetts for an entire day.

Pedro Azagra, the CEO of Avangrid, Iberdrola's subsidiary in the United States, stated: "We are finally supplying clean offshore wind energy to the Massachusetts grid. We are at a turning point for climate action in the United States, and we are witnessing a dawning for the nation's offshore wind industry. As the capacity of this historic project gets started, we will continue to support all of the partners who made this achievement possible".

Last October, Avangrid and the Danish investment group Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), co-owner of the project, announced that Vineyard Wind I project closed $1.2 billion (approximately 1.135 billion euros) first-of-its-kind tax equity package for commercial-scale offshore wind with three US-based banks.