Falmouth officials have been in negotiations with offshore wind limited liability corporations since 2019. Massachusetts executives at that time agreed to build and operate an 800-megawatt wind farm 20 miles south of Nantucket.
The proposal called for placing onshore cables through the residential communities in the Town of Falmouth. The plans went on hold as there was no electric infrastructure to transport the power off Cape Cod. The plan was changed to Portsmouth, Rhode Island where like the majority of Falmouth residents are also against the project.
High out-of-control inflation has caused wind companies to drop state-approved power contracts.
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Maintenance issues with large ocean wind turbines have now slowed the manufacture of turbines.
Stock portfolios have dropped nearly 50 percent this year in offshore wind investments.
Find out what's happening in Falmouthfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Foreign wind companies are asking for new and more of your federal tax dollars for relief.
In 2016 Massachusetts passed the "Act to Promote Energy Diversity" which was sold to the public as a means to provide offshore wind power at a relatively inexpensive rate per kilowatt hour. Today with all the federal and state incentives that rate could cost ratepayers 6 to 8 times that of other fuel sources. Your electric bill could become as high as an unaffordable second mortgage.
Another major issue is whales and dolphins have been found dead along the Atlantic Coast, part of a trend in unusually high deaths among several whale species since the 2016 installation of the Block Island, Rhode Island wind turbines. The whale deaths have followed wind construction in New Jersey and New York.
Environmentalists from multiple states have asked the federal government for a probe into the whale deaths.
All the members of the Rhode Island Fishermen’s Advisory Board resigned in August over wind turbine negotiations. They contend the fishing industry is being ignored in favor of offshore wind projects by state officials.
The wind energy fiasco in Massachusetts has significant implications for the offshore wind business as the onshore wind projects ended in chaos. The two Falmouth town-owned megawatt wind turbines were removed in 2022.
Many ask if the land-based wind projects ended in a disaster how will the offshore wind be any different?
In the United Kingdom, no new offshore wind project contracts were bid in the government auction as offshore forecasters say costs could increase by large percentages.,
New Massachusetts offshore wind procurement bids are due January 31, 2024.
