America’s First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Farm Reaches Financial Close

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), has reached financial close on its 800 MW offshore wind farm in Massachusetts — the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the United States and the Americas region.

The developer has raised USD 2.3 billion of senior debt through nine international and US banks to finance the construction of the project, which now enables Vineyard Wind to give the go-ahead to its contractors.

At USD 2.3 billion, Vineyard Wind 1 represents one of the largest investments in a single renewable energy projects in the US.

Vineyard Wind 1 is also the first commercial scale offshore wind farm in the US to achieve financial close, which comes a few months after the project was approved by the government and received the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final Clean Air Act Outer Continental Shelf air quality permit.

Construction works will first start onshore in Barnstable, where the offshore wind farm will connect to the national grid on land. Onshore works are scheduled to begin this Fall.

Offshore work will commence in 2022 with the installation of foundations and cables, followed by wind turbines.

The 800 MW project will feature next-generation GE Haliade-X wind turbines, to be installed by DEME Offshore’s US arm.

Jan De Nul will install inter-array cables supplied by JDR, while the export cables will be delivered by Prysmian.

The 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1 is scheduled to deliver its first power to the grid in 2023.