The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is scheduled to receive comments on the draft environmental impact statement for Vineyard Wind LLC’s 800-megawatt offshore wind project by Feb. 22, with a final version of the environmental study set to be released in the spring, according to a Feb. 8 notice.

• The statement provides an analysis of potential environmental impacts associated with the construction and operations plan that was submitted by the developers in December 2017.
• The government shutdown led to several hearings being postponed and the comment deadline being extended.
• The project developer already has contracts with distribution utilities in Massachusetts, which has a 1.6-gigawatt offshore wind mandate. The project also secured a 54-megawatt capacity supply obligation in the ISO New England Inc’s annual forward capacity auction substitution round, after it unsuccessfully moved federal regulators for a delay in the auction to get the “renewable technology resource” status.
• The facility is co-owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables. Avangrid is owned by Iberdrola SA.