For many visitors a trip to Block Island - a seven-by-three mile spit of land off the coast of Rhode Island - isn't complete without a stop along the southeastern tip where you can stroll across a wide field and take in a stunning ocean view. There's a lighthouse here, but over the last couple of weeks locals and tourists alike have come here to see something else: the country's first offshore wind farm.
"I have mixed emotions about it," said Donald Smith as he looks out at five sky scraper sized turbines forming a line on the horizon. He's been coming to Block Island every summer since her was kid and now owns a timeshare here. "We know people who have houses and they're not that excited about looking out in the morning and seeing them out their front window."
The turbines have changed the view off Block Island and, potentially, for power grids nationwide. When they go online in November they're expected to pump enough energy into a pair of underwater cables to power Block Island and homes on the mainland - 17,000 homes in all.
"This project represents the United States ability to see a real wind farm in the United States, permanent and constructed," said Matt Morrissey, a vice president with Deepwater Wind - the Rhode Island company that navigated not only the challenges of installing turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, but also the political currents that have made developing offshore wind energy - at best - a challenge.
Consider Cape Wind - a plan to install dozens of turbines in Nantucket Sound off Cape Cod. It met with fierce opposition and 15 years later remains little more than an artist's rendering.
"No one in the industry wants to cast aspersions on Cape Wind," said Morrissey. "They came before federal regulation; before the federal government came forward and said let's run thousands of hours of stakeholders' analysis on federal areas."
Today there are federally designated areas all along the East Coast vetted for future wind farms. One of them is just fifteen miles from the Block Island site - off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. This summer plans to develop that site got a huge boost when Governor Charlie Baker signed legislation mandating that in next decade ten percent of Massachusetts' power come from offhshore wind.
"It's the first at scale requirement that exists nationally in the United States," said Francis O'Sullivan, director of research at MIT's Energy Initiative.
The wind farm off Martha's Vineyard will be much larger than the Block Island project, likely comprising well over 100 turbines. The scale is important not only for meeting power demand, but also keep down prices.
"Potentially, energy costs will actually fall with offshore wind," said O'Sullivan. " With all renewable technologies the way they actually operate - you have to spend a lot of money up front to pay for their construction, but you spend nothing on fuel.
It cost $350 million to build the project off Block Island. Deepwater wind sees it as an investment for future projects. The company already has plans to develop wind turbines off Martha's Vineyard - and beyond.
"Offshore wind is here to stay," said Morrissey. " Block Island is an example of American know how and we're really exicted about this moment in history."
