Vineyard Wind 1, the 806 MW offshore wind farm that Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Avangrid are building off Massachusetts, has created 937 union jobs during the two years of the project’s construction. With more jobs coming in 2024, Vineyard Wind 1 will have created more than 1,000 union jobs by the time the construction is completed.
This is nearly double what CIP and Avangrid committed to in the project’s Project Labor Agreement (PLA) in 2021, when the joint venture pledged to create 500 union jobs.
Offshore construction on Vineyard Wind 1 began in late 2022 and the project, which is being built out of the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, achieved steel-in-the-water in June.
The offshore substation was installed in July and the first of the total 62 GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines was erected in October.
At the beginning of this month, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners announced that five wind turbines were in place and that the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project is preparing to deliver first power to the electric grid in Massachusetts.
CIP and Avangrid reported the figures on the union jobs created so far in a report they submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) on 19 December.
This is the second report the developers filed with DOER under an agreement that was signed between the agency and Vineyard Wind after the project was selected by the state in its first offshore wind procurement in 2017.
The new report, focused on construction activities that occurred over a two-year period from October 2021 to September 2023, also shows that 71.5 per cent of union workers on the project are residents of Southeastern Massachusetts.
In terms of the project’s economic impact, the report finds that Vineyard Wind 1 has so far delivered USD 590 million in total economic output to the Massachusetts economy.
Prepared by Compiled by UMass Dartmouth and Springline Research Group, the report also looks at the number of nonunion jobs created over the last two-year period, with 986 nonunion workers employed during the construction phase of the 806 MW offshore wind farm to date.
Since the Vineyard Wind 1 development phase began in 2017, a total of 1,989 workers have been employed on the project.
“By the time we complete construction on Vineyard Wind 1, Avangrid will have delivered more than 1,000 union jobs and enough clean power for 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts,” said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. “The report we filed today reflects the enormous potential of offshore wind, and we’re proud of the bonds we’ve built with the unions and skilled labor in Massachusetts. Together, we’re showing the world that a clean energy future means good jobs for workers and economic opportunity for historic port communities like New Bedford.”
Located some 15 miles (approximately 24 kilometres) off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Vineyard Wind 1 is the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm to be approved for construction in the US.