This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Workers with the Boston-based Iron Workers Local 7 torque bolts, weld metal and scale extreme heights while building large wind turbines on ships off the coast of New England.
They spend weeks, even months, on the water, celebrating their birthdays together and, according to Matt Glavin, taking pride in the projects to which they’re contributing.
“We all work together to make these realities happen,” Glavin, the union’s business agent, said at a March 25 press conference in Concord unveiling the findings of a new report about offshore wind.
The report, released by the Union of Concerned Scientists in February, found that offshore wind energy could have significantly lowered the risk of a blackout in the New England winter season. It analyzed two projects — Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts and Revolution Wind in Rhode Island — that recently came online, extrapolating their success in mitigating energy shortfalls.
From Dec. 1, 2024, to Feb. 28, 2025, energy demand surpassed the danger threshold of 350,000 megawatt-hours during 53 of those 90 days. If Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, which have a combined capacity of 1,500 megawatts, had been online during that season, only 24 days would have experienced an energy shortfall. That number further decreased to 13 days if the two more projects underway in Massachusetts were also contributing to the grid.
“This is what we mean when we say offshore wind makes the grid stronger,” said Susan Muller, senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists and author of the report. “It really lowers the risk, lowers the stress on the system.”
Offshore wind also can save ratepayers money. Stephanie Francoeur, senior vice president of communications at the Oceantic Network, said Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind could have saved over $800 per megawatt-hour during January’s winter storm.
Expensive resources, like natural gas peaker plants, are typically deployed when the energy grid is stressed. Prices can spike rapidly and ratepayers “bear the burden,” she said. Offshore wind energy could have provided a stable price between $80 to $90 during those high-stress periods, the report concluded.
“The more we build now and insulate ourselves against those types of price spikes and just the rising cost, the better,” Francoeur said. “I think that all ratepayers, they’re going to get some more breathing room … Where we’re seeing offshore wind deployed, we’re seeing comparable savings on monthly utility bills, which is what everybody wants.”
Muller explained that offshore wind has a high upfront cost — Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind each were estimated to cost $4 billion. But wind energy has a “near zero operating cost” that pushes more expensive power plants out of the market, which in turn, can lower energy bills.
“This is the part of the story that has not been shared widely enough,” she said. “Offshore wind will always put downward pressure on the wholesale market price because of the way the energy market works.”
Muller also addressed the effect offshore wind projects have on ocean biodiversity. She said fish populations are affected during construction, but they often come back “abundantly” once it concludes.
In December, the Trump administration paused leases on five large-scale offshore wind projects, including Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind. Federal courts consistently ruled in favor of the projects and lifted stop-work orders.
Speakers issued a firm rebuke of federal efforts to scuttle wind projects.
“It’s not pro-worker,” Glavin said. “Diverting that money into some sort of coal plant or natural gas plant in Texas, that could be 15, 20 years down the road, is not benefiting ratepayers in this state or workers in New England and New York. There needs to be push back.”
Rob Werner, New Hampshire director for the League of Conservation Voters, said the administration is using other tactics to stymie clean energy projects, even if it comes at a cost to taxpayers.
“Regardless of what this administration does, I think what we’re seeing and will continue to see, not only in wind but in solar, is the price continuing to drop and to be competitive with, if not outpace, traditional energy sources,” he said. “That, really, at the end of the day is going to be the driver as to why we, from an economic point of view, pursue these projects for the energy that we need.”
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