Mass. approves Cape Wind, NSTAR PPA

By PBN Staff
Twitter: @ProvBusNews

BOSTON – The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities has approved the 15-year power purchase agreement between Cape Wind and NSTAR, Cape Wind announced Monday.

“We are very pleased with the favorable reception we have been experiencing from the financial community and this approval of our PPA with NSTAR will further help Cape Wind secure financing and deliver all of the public benefits this important project will provide,” Cape Wind President Jim Gordon said in prepared remarks.

The approved PPA, which a Cape Wind release called “another major milestone,” will allow the power utility to purchase 27.5 percent of Cape Wind’s power.

“This decision helps secure the position of Massachusetts as the U.S. leader in offshore wind power, launching a new industry that will create jobs, increase energy independence, and promote a cleaner and healthier environment,” said Gordon.

“With this decision, Massachusetts electric consumers have secured an abundant, inexhaustible and clean energy resource that provides price stability and avoids all of the external costs of fossil fuels,” added Gordon. “Finally, our region will no longer be at the end of the energy pipeline, by harnessing an endless supply of offshore wind power, we will be producing homegrown and clean energy right here.”

In December 2011, the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld the Department of Public Utilities’ approval of Cape Wind’s PPA with National Grid for the purchase of 50 percent of the company’s power.

“Taken together, these two PPAs provide Cape Wind with the critical mass to continue securing project financing,” Theodore Roosevelt IV, managing director of Barclays and Cape Wind’s financial adviser said in a statement.