Cape Wind Associates said it has stopped developing the 468-MW project and is surrendering its federal lease for 46 square miles in the Nantucket Sound, The Cape Cod Times (Mass.) reported Dec. 1. The announcement closes the books on a 16-year effort to build what was once hailed as the U.S.’s first offshore wind farm.
"Cape Wind has confirmed to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that it has ceased development of its proposed offshore wind farm project in Nantucket Sound and has filed to terminate its offshore wind development lease that was issued in 2010," Cape Wind Vice President Dennis Duffy said in a statement to the newspaper.
The project lost its contracts with Eversource and National Grid in 2015 and faced years of litigation over its permits. It caught a rare break when the bureau, or BOEM, decided in September to let Cape Wind Associates keep its federal lease after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in 2016 that BOEM could add a supplement to Cape Wind's 2009 environmental impact statement and approve the project.
That decision spurred the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a group of volunteers opposed to the project, to file an appeal last month to reverse the decision. Dozens of Cape Cod residents, businesses and government agencies also joined the coalition's appeal.
"The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound intends to move forward with the strong and determined coalition we have forged to make certain that never again is a private developer given the rights to land that belongs to all of us," Audra Parker, the Alliance's president and CEO, said in a statement.
