Project Merit: Wind Power

Cape Wind Associates (Boston) for nearing what looks like the finish line of an epic 10-year effort to build a 468 MW wind power project in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After hotly contested local and state and permitting battles were concluded in 2009, Cape Wind won approval from the U.S. Department of the Interior in April. In January 2011, Cape Wind completed its federal permitting process with final approvals from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In November 2010, the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Utilities approved Cape Wind's first power purchase agreement, authorizing National Grid to purchase half the project's output for $187/MWh for 15 years, with a 3.5% annual escalation clause, a contract the DPU estimated at between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion NPV. At CCBJ's deadline, Cape Wind was seeking project finance to build what would become the first offshore wind farm in North America.