New England Energy Provider to Buy Power From Nation’s First Large-Scale Offshore Wind Farm
May 16, 2010 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis 
Scroby Sands Wind Farm, England. Photo courtesy of offshore-power.net.
As part of the nation’s continuing move to harness renewable energies that are both environmentally safe and cost-effective, National Grid - an energy supplier to about 3.3 million customers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York - has entered into an agreement with Cape Wind to purchase 50 percent of its output.
Cape Wind is a 468 megawatt offshore wind project planned for Nantucket Sound and is expected to go online by the end of 2012. The project is being developed by Energy Management Inc., a New England-based energy company.
Under the terms of the contract - filed this week with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities - beginning in 2013, National Grid plans to purchase 50 percent of the wind farm’s output, including electricity, renewable energy certificates (tradable energy commodities), and other potential market attributes for 20.7 cents per kilowatt hours.
Based on its forecasts of what customers will pay for electricity in 2013, National Grid projects this translate to a total monthly bill increase of $1.59, roughly two percent per month.
“We recognize that all renewable energy, be it on-or-off shore wind, solar or other source has a cost associated with it. Carbon-based generation comes with its own set of long-term costs, such as to our health and our environment,” said Tom King, president of National Grid.