What’s next for the Port of New Bedford now that Vineyard Wind is done?
Work for the offshore wind farm will not be completely absent from New Bedford, because some of the maintenance is based in the city, Mayor Jon Mitchell said.
But with construction of the 62 turbines now complete, no new tenant is waiting in the wings to move into the $133 million heavy-lift terminal built for offshore wind on New Bedford Harbor.
President Donald Trump’s opposition to offshore wind has shut off the pipeline of wind projects expected to use the state-owned New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal.
Mitchell called on the state to look for other ways to use the facility until offshore wind returns.
“It can support a whole array of project cargo, and even some containerized cargo, on smaller freighters that can use New Bedford Harbor,” he said. “So it’s something that the state has to actively explore. We just can't have that facility lie fallow for long.”
He wants to see wind return to what he called a state-of-art facility, and he said he remains "bullish" on the industry. But Mitchell said a short-term delay in offshore wind is not a huge setback for the port.
“Offshore wind has always been, for us, a diversification play,” he said.
He said many local businesses that got work from offshore wind were doing well before wind came to town. Those include boat fueling, hotels, and fishing vessels providing on-water security for the wind farm.
Commercial fishing remains the city’s bread and butter, he said.
Meanwhile, the state plans to expand the wind terminal.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state agency focused on energy-related economic development, plans to increase the size of the heavy-lift storage area by 24 percent, with work scheduled to be done by the end of 2028.
Vineyard Wind installed its final turbine blades March 13, marking a shift in the project's focus to operations and maintenance.
Over the long term, that work will be based in Vineyard Haven. But turbine manufacturer General Electric has a five-year warranty to fulfill, and the company will use an offshore support vessel based in New Bedford, the mayor said.
“That will be the primary work, but there will also be some level of [operations and maintenance] that happens out of the Port of New Bedford,” he said. “Again, the more routine stuff will happen out of Vineyard Haven, but there would be some other — insofar as there's a need for further construction at all, or major capital maintenance, that will happen out of New Bedford.”
The next wind farm slated to use the offshore wind terminal was SouthCoast Wind, but that project has been delayed indefinitely by the Trump administration.
Just one month before Trump's inauguration, the Biden administration announced formal approval of SouthCoast Wind and the publication of a Record of Decision, a joint approval by multiple agencies. But the project cannot proceed without some smaller permits under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Clean Water Act, and Rivers and Harbors Act.
