Cape Wind completed its Federal permitting process today with the receipt of a final permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), continuing the project’s forward progress to creating jobs and increasing energy independence from the 468 megawatt offshore wind farm.
EPA’s approval came 24 hours after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued Cape Wind its long awaited Section 10 Permit.
Cape Wind President Jim Gordon welcomed the news, “The receipt of Cape Wind’s last permit approval represents a decade’s effort of our company and 17 Federal and State agencies striving to harness America’s abundant, inexhaustible offshore wind resource that will contribute to increasing our nation’s energy independence, improving our health and environment and creating thousands of new clean energy jobs. American drive, competitiveness and ingenuity is entering the race with Europe and Asia for leadership in this burgeoning new global industry.”
Last year, U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar announced that his agency had approved Cape Wind and granted the project the nation’s first offshore wind power lease. In 2009 Cape Wind completed its state and local permitting and those approvals were later upheld by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
With the permitting process complete, and with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities recent approval of Cape Wind’s power purchase contract with National Grid, Cape Wind’s focus turns to securing project finance.
Cape Wind will create over 1,000 new jobs. Last October, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced the creation of a new multi-purpose Marine Commerce Terminal in the port of New Bedford that will be the first facility in North America designed for the staging and assembly of offshore wind turbines and Cape Wind will be this facility’s first customer. In another recent jobs announcement, Middleboro-based Mass Tank in partnership with German-based EEW, have announced they will open a new manufacturing facility in Massachusetts to supply Cape Wind with monopile foundations and transition pieces.
Cape Wind is America’s first fully permitted offshore wind farm and it has also secured the nation’s first offshore wind lease. The project will locate 130 offshore wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound that will provide most of the electricity used on Cape Cod and the Islands from clean, renewable energy – reducing this region’s need to import oil, coal and gas. Cape Wind will create new jobs, help stabilize electric costs, contribute to a healthier environment, increase energy independence and establish Massachusetts as a leader in offshore wind power.
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Source: capewind, January 10, 2011