Cape Wind gets ‘super permit’ from Mass.

HYANNIS, Mass. – Officials in Massachusetts have approved a comprehensive permit allowing developers to go forward with Cape Wind, the long-stalled 130-turbine wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound.

“Massachusetts has done its job to give this project a long and thorough review on the merits, and the federal review process is winding to a close,” Mass. Gov. Deval L. Patrick said yesterday. “The time has come to see the first offshore wind farm in America rise off the Massachusetts coast, a powerful symbol of our commitment to a clean energy future.“

The Mass. Energy Facilities Siting Board’s seven members voted unanimously last week to grant a Certificate of Environmental Impact and Public Interest to Cape Wind Associates LLC, the private developer behind the project.

The so-called “super permit” covers all state and local permitting requirements and overturns the Cape Cod Commission’s earlier rejection of the project. It can only be reversed by the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court, the Bay State’s high court.

The certificate was signed yesterday by Mass. Undersecretary for Energy Ann Berwick, the board’s chair, concluding a state and local regulatory battle over Cape Wind that has lasted more than seven years and pitted some of the state’s most powerful leaders against one another.

“With impacts and benefits analyzed, mitigation commitments in hand and permitting complete, this project is ready to move forward,” said Mass. Energy and Environmental Secretary Ian Bowles. “Soon, the Commonwealth will cement its position as the natural hub for the American offshore wind industry.”

R.I. Gov. Donald L. Carcieri and other officials in the Ocean State have said they want the same for Rhode Island, and have begun the permitting process for a 100-turbine wind farm proposed by Hoboken, N.J.-based developer Deepwater Wind for Rhode Island Sound, as well as a smaller wind farm off Block Island. The smaller of those two projects is slated to be up and running in 2012.

Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates, told Reuters he was ecstatic by the board’s decision. He said the project is now awaiting final approval from the federal government. The Obama administration has expressed strong support for wind-energy development, and released long-awaited regulations for wind projects last month.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, a nonprofit that represents some Cape Cod property-owners and others opposed to Cape Wind, called the Energy Facilities Siting Board’s decision “an unprecedented subversion of local authority,” and said it would immediately appeal the permit approval to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Although Cape Wind’s turbines would be located in federal waters at the center of Nantucket Sound, its transmission cables would need to run through state waters to deliver electricity to the mainland. The 440-foot-high turbines would be slightly more than five miles from the nearest homes, according to the developers.

Cape Wind’s developers estimate the wind farm would generate 170 megawatts of electricity on average, enough to power more than 200,000 homes, and up to 454 megawatts when operating at maximum capacity, which could power about 400,000 homes.

Additional information is available at CapeWind.org.