By — Danny Kistner

This past Tuesday, The Interior Department (DOI) granted Vineyard Winds, a company that had experienced delays for nearly two decades in this attempt, to built up to 84 offshore wind turbines off the coast of Massachusetts. This is not only a big step in the right direction toward clean energy—given that the turbines combined will be able to produce enough energy to power 400,000 homes—but also a first for the United States as a whole. Only two offshore wind farms exist as of right now, and together produce only 42 megawatts, contrasting greatly with the new projects 800 megawatts of energy. 

Naturally, when compared with Europe, the United States is far behind when it comes to offshore wind energy, the other continent already producing well over 25,000 megawatts from the turbines alone. That said, the Biden administration has set an ambitious plan of creating 30,000 megawatts of clean, wind-generated energy by 2030, which is in turn only a small fraction of Biden’s plan for 100% clean energy by 2035. 

The new, Massachusetts located project is set to be operational by 2023 and its receiving a Record of Decision from the DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is a good sign for companies similar to it, as well as the government’s approving of such projects, in order to fully complete such an daunting, though fully necessary, goal.