Nov 26 2010
Cape Wind’s proposal for constructing an offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal has entered the final stages and crossed an important landmark on receiving sanction from the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU).
The DPU has approved the 15 year power purchase agreement of the company with National Grid to sell its generated energy, capacity production and the accrued renewable energy credits.
Before delivering its decision on Cape Wind, the DPU went into the details of the first ever offshore wind power generation project of the country and performed an all included appraisal for six months. It heard the solemn statements of 15 witnesses during the 13 days of evidential hearing and scanned through around 3,000 transcript pages and 1362 exhibits. The case received extensive participation from 14 varied groups. The company has made it known that the new project will create over 1,000 new job opportunities in various sectors such as production, assembly, staging, construction and operations in state. In addition to that Siemens has opened its offshore wind office in Boston. The DPU in its approval said that the company brings in notable benefits for the state, which are unavailable with other types of renewable energy sources and the incoming benefits compensate the investments on the project. It also made it clear that the details presented during the appraisal evidences the uniqueness of the project and the exclusively offered benefits.
Jim Gordon, President of Cape wind, said that the approval of DPU proves the claim of the company in delivering clean energy and the long term agreement while allowing the production of inexhaustible clean energy regularly will also shield the customers from rising cost of fossil fuel and the spending on meeting ecological imbalances.