Barnstable, Mass., at the center of offshore wind debate

Dowses Beach in Osterville, Mass. (Courtesy of Save Greater Dowses Beach)

The town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, is putting out the welcome mat for power from offshore wind farms off the coast, but amid growing opposition on Cape Cod it’s unclear whether that will continue.

The still-under-construction Vineyard Wind 1, which is bringing its 800 megawatts of electricity ashore at Covell Beach, faced relatively little local opposition. That changed when the developer Avangrid proposed a second landing spot at Craigville Beach for a transmission line from another 800-megawatt wind farm. Still, Avangrid recently won final approval from a divided Barnstable Town Council after sweetening its host community agreement with the town.

Avangrid is currently planning another 1,200-megawatt wind farm that would deliver its power to the Cape at Dowses Beach in the Barnstable village of Osterville. Many in town are asking why a residential beach community has become the onshore epicenter of the offshore wind business in Massachusetts.

“The town is outraged that this is happening,” said Chuck Tuttle of the Barnstable village of Centerville, one of the founders of an opposition group called Barnstable Speaks. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the town gets sued.”

The reason Avangrid is targeting Barnstable is because of its proximity to the offshore wind farm area and its ability to deliver electricity relatively cheaply to the regional power grid.

Vineyard Wind 1, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, secured a host community agreement with Barnstable relatively easily. Avangrid signed a second host community agreement with Barnstable for another wind farm in May 2022, but the company terminated that project in 2023 when economic conditions shifted.

That project, previously called Park City Wind and now dubbed New England Wind 1, is back on track. Because it has nearly all of its federal, state, and local permits, New England Wind 1 is the frontrunner to win a power purchase agreement in a state procurement scheduled to close in August.

But the long delay since the original host community agreement was approved gave opponents time to mobilize. They elected people who shared their concerns to the Town Council in November and they raised concerns about the Craigville Beach project, as well as the plan for a future transmission line at Dowses Beach.

At a Town Council meeting on June 27, Barnstable Town Attorney Karen Nober said attitudes had shifted on the original host community agreement for the transmission line coming ashore at Craigville Beach.

“In the last year or so,” she said, “Barnstable residents and businesses have raised a host of concerns about the Park City Wind project and its potential impact – some of which was not integrated when the host community agreement was originally negotiated.”

Then she dropped a bombshell, revealing that the Town Council greenlighted the project after approving a sweetener to the original host community agreement during an executive session two weeks earlier. The vote was 7-5.

The original deal called for Avangrid to pay $16 million to the town over 20 years, but the sweetener promised the $16 million up front at the start of construction. The new deal also provided new protections if any problems surfaced during construction of the power line and an electric substation. And it offered the town another $10 million for roadway improvements, sewer work, and the Barnstable schools.

Opponents on the council lamented the new deal. “This is not a win. This is a travesty,” said John Crow. Betty Ludtke asked why Avangrid could back out of its deal with the state but the town couldn’t back out of its earlier host community agreement with Avangrid. “We’re giving away our treasure,” she said.

A day later two high-ranking Healey administration officials sent a letter to local elected officials thanking them for their leadership and assuring them the project is safe.

“We urge the public to be wary of increasing disinformation about common electric infrastructure, which is extensively vetted by environmental and permitting experts as well as independent academics prior to installation,” wrote Michael Judge, the state’s undersecretary of energy, and Robbie Goldstein, the commissioner of the Department of Public Health. “Barnstable residents should not be dissuaded from enjoying the beach this summer, but rather proud of their important role in the fight against climate change, and confident that the electric transmission lines pose no known threat to public health or safety.”

Avangrid, meanwhile, is not backing away from its plan to bring another transmission line ashore at Dowses Beach. “That’s still the place we want to go,” said Ken Kimmell, vice president of offshore wind development at Avangrid.

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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