Credit: flickr/Mass Clean Energy Center

On January 29, the Department of Interior (DOI) will auction off the largest area of federal waters in the nation for the development of offshore wind power. More than 742,000 acres, or over 1,160 square miles, will be offered for wind development off the coast of Massachusetts. While the U.S. is yet to install its first offshore wind turbine, across the Atlantic the offshore wind industry is booming. In the first six months of 2014, Europe connected 224 offshore wind turbines in 16 wind farms to its grid. Overall, Europe has over 2,000 offshore turbines.

The opening of these waters south of Martha’s Vineyard comes at an inauspicious moment for U.S. offshore wind as the long-sought nearby Cape Wind project is all but dead, according to the Boston Globe, after suffering a decade of “controversy and mismanagement.”

What could be the final blow for Cape Wind came earlier this month as two major power companies that had agreed to purchase the bulk of the […]