By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday approved the country’s eighth commercial-scale offshore wind project, which will be built off the coast of Massachusetts, bringing online electricity to power more than 900,000 homes.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
The New England Wind Project approval brings the U.S. one-third of the way to President Joe Biden’s goal of permitting 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030 – a key part of the president’s climate change agenda.
CONTEXT
The project comes just a week after the Interior Department approved another offshore wind project in New York. The approvals this year follow a series of attempts by companies including Equinor, BP, Avangrid and Shell, to cancel or seek to renegotiate power contracts for commercial-scale U.S. wind farms due to supply chain concerns and high materials costs.
KEY QUOTE
“The Biden-Harris administration has built an offshore wind industry from the ground up after years of delay from the previous administration,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
THE DETAILS
The New England Wind project, located around 20 nautical miles south of the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard, is expected to generate up to 2,600 megawatts of electricity.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by David Gregorio)
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