The installation can generate enough electricity to power about 400,000 homes. Its completion comes as another regional offshore project, Revolution Wind, announced it had reached full power, with 704 megawatts of capacity, enough for about 350,000 homes.
Offshore wind has long been central to New England’s energy plans. The six-state region has no oil or gas reserves and limited open land for solar and onshore wind, while its relatively shallow coastal waters offer strong, consistent winds. Massachusetts selected Vineyard Wind in its first offshore wind auction more than eight years ago.
Katie Segal, senior director of offshore wind for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, said New England was better off with two fully commercially operational projects. “We are in for a difficult winter and wind will help with costs and reliability,” she wrote in a text to WBUR.
Vineyard Wind is the country’s largest offshore wind project to have been federally permitted and constructed, according to WBUR. The $4.5 billion development employed about 3,500 people, many of them union workers.
Its path to completion included a permitting hold imposed by the first Trump administration in 2019. Construction received approval under President Biden, but a faulty turbine blade broke in 2024, sending debris into the ocean and onto Nantucket’s shores. The incident prompted a public outcry and a federal investigation.
In late December 2025, with construction 95% complete, the Trump administration ordered work stopped at Vineyard Wind and four other projects. The Interior Department said the developments posed a national security threat. Several federal judges disagreed, and work was eventually allowed to resume. Vineyard Wind announced in mid-March that construction was complete and that it was working to get the final turbines online.
The wider industry’s prospects remain uncertain. A federal permitting pause has effectively frozen progress on all but five projects that were already under construction, WBUR reported. Wind advocates hope a permitting reform bill being negotiated in Congress could provide projects with greater certainty and prevent future administrations from discriminating against projects or power sources they don’t like. The legislation’s prospects remain unsettled.