On Wednesday, the UHL Felicity, a nearly 500-foot-long barge carrying turbine components manufactured in Portugal, squeezed through the gates of the hurricane barrier protecting New Bedford’s busy harbor.
New Bedford has been a major American seaport since the 1700s, when sailors hunted whales for oil that lit street lights and lamps in people’s homes, and the city adopted “lucem diffundo” — Latin for “spread light” — as its motto.
New Bedford’s harbor has remained busy since then, becoming home to the largest fishing fleet on the East Coast. Now, centuries later, New Bedford is hoping to reprise its role as a port that helps keep the lights on in America: this time as an assembly and maintenance hub for the country’s first utility-scale offshore wind farms, which the Biden administration is hoping to expand into a major source of clean energy capable of helping the U.S. reach its emissions reductions goals.
The arrival of the UHL Felicity on Wednesday was a long-anticipated sign that New Bedford’s dreams of becoming a major offshore wind port are becoming a tangible reality.
“For most folks who haven’t been paying attention to the wind industry, this is their first taste of reality — seeing this big ship with the parts on it,” said Anne Lauro, a New Bedford city planner and resident who brought her dog for a walk on the hurricane barrier to see the first turbine components arrive in person.
The barge that swept past Lauro and her dog docked at a special facility built in 2015 by the state of Massachusetts at a cost of $120 million, with another $45 million of renovations planned for the near future. Until now, the 29-acre dock had remained mostly dormant since its completion. The turbines assembled there this summer and fall will eventually be erected on a stretch of ocean floor 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Upon installation, the turbines will be taller than the biggest skyscrapers in Boston.
The UHL Felicity’s arrival on Wednesday is the first of many expected shipments that will be coming through New Bedford as the county’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm, Vineyard Wind One, is pieced together.
Each barge will carry enough components for about two turbines. Altogether, the project will include 62 turbines, generating enough power for an estimated 400,000 homes in Massachusetts.
“This is only the first,” Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moeller said of the shipment that arrived in New Bedford on Wednesday. “Much more is coming. And the vision of New Bedford at the epicenter of the offshore wind industry is coming to life today.”
A spokesperson for Vineyard Wind said the project will begin delivering electricity to Massachusetts later this year.
Ben Berke is the South Coast Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org.
