The Baker administration, working with the state’s three big electric utilities, announced that a joint venture called Vineyard Wind has been picked for contracts to build a massive wind farm about 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. The project, a partnership of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, would consist of an 800-megawatt facility that could start generating electricity, enough to power 400,000 homes, by 2021. These power contracts were set in motion by a 2016 state law aimed at sparking a more diverse energy supply for the state.


Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, the Raimondo administration picked hometown favorite Deepwater Wind for a 400-megawatt project somewhat closer to shore. (Deepwater opened the region’s first offshore wind farm in 2016, off Block Island.) In an interesting twist, the Rhode Island officials essentially piggybacked on the bidding work in Massachusetts, enabling the state to add another wind farm to the region’s mix. A third bidder, a venture owned by Orsted and Eversource, was left out in the cold.

We’ve been down this road before. The 130-turbine Cape Wind proposal hung on for years, dodging appeal after appeal. It had contracts with utilities, too — for a while, anyway. But Cape Wind also had a well-financed opposition group that eventually outgunned it. A similar antagonist has not emerged to face off against these projects, at least not yet.

Wind power proponents say this time will be different. These projects were competitively bid, they say, and will be further offshore, in deeper waters, with bigger turbines. They’re right about that, although there are still plenty of permits to obtain and hurdles to clear.

Yes, it’s been a long wait. But now, all signs point to the new industry finally being born off New England’s southern coast.


Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.