Installation of 62 wind turbines begins at Iberdrola's Vineyard Wind offshore wind project in the United States

The installation of the 62 wind turbines that make up the Iberdrola Group's first major offshore wind project in the United States, Vineyard Wind, has begun. Avangrid has announced the start of the campaign following the successful transport of the first GE Haliade-X wind turbine from the Marine Commerce Terminal in New Bedford to the plant site some 55 km south of the Cape Cod peninsula in Massachusetts waters. 

"Over the past year, we have achieved important milestones in the development of Avangrid's Vineyard Wind 1, but the installation of the project's first turbine stands as a unique milestone for offshore wind, clean energy and climate action in the United States," said Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. "We are proud that local union labour is pioneering the installation of GE's massive turbines that will harness the winds off the coast of Massachusetts to power more than 400,000 homes and businesses across the Commonwealth." 

Vineyard Wind 1 will consist of 62 wind turbines with the capacity to generate 806 megawatts, enough to power more than 400,000 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Part of the Iberdrola Group's portfolio of more than 41,000 megawatts of renewable energy in operation, it is part of a suite of global assets that includes offshore projects in the UK, Germany and France.

The scale of the wind turbines and their capacity are impressive:  

• The GE Haliade-X is the largest turbine in the West. With an output of up to 13 MW (expandable to 13.6 MW), each machine is capable of powering more than 6,000 homes and businesses. 
• One rotation of a single turbine can power a Massachusetts home for an entire day.  
• Each wind turbine is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty, measured from the surface of the water.  
• The blades are each 107 metres long, which is the length of the Gillette Stadium field in Foxborough, Massachusetts.  
• The swept area of the blades is equivalent to seven football fields. 
• The diameter of the rotor reaches 220 metres, about the height of the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.  
• The components transported to the project site weigh a combined total of 1,700 metric tonnes, which is more than eight Boeing 747 aircraft.  

Two barges over 120 metres long, the only ones capable of transporting GE's massive Haliade-X turbine parts in an upright position, were used to move the components. Once installed, the Haliade-X will rise more than 260 metres, which is three times the height of the well-known Flat Iron building in Manhattan, New York.  

With more than 800 MW of installed capacity and an investment of 2.5 billion euros, Vineyard Wind 1 is expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road annually. 

The project will create 3,600 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs and save its customers $1.4 billion over the first 20 years of operation.