As wind energy company looks to link to Brayton Point, ceremony planned for bill signing
SOMERSET — Gov. Charlie Baker, at a Statehouse ceremony at 1:30 p.m. Monday, will sign the landmark energy bill that for the SouthCoast carries the incentive that 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind energy be created in the next decade.
The bill aimed at making Massachusetts a national leader of this alternative energy source passed with only one dissenting vote in the Legislature late last Sunday night.
State Rep. Patricia Haddad, D-Somerset, a key sponsor of the bill in the House and high-profile advocate of including wind energy, said she and other legislators were notified about the signing Thursday.
Haddad, who traveled to Europe early this year before filing her bill, in order to learn about the energy source, also confirmed that Danish-based Dong Energy filed a request with ISO New England to develop 800 megawatts of wind energy.
The filing is to secure a link at the Brayton Point power station, the 1,500-megawatts plant built in the mid-1960s that is mostly powered by coal and slated to close by May 31.
“The info you provided below is news to us. We haven’t heard anything about it,” Dynegy spokesman Micah Hirschfield said in an email.
Dong, one of the world’s largest wind energy developers, has secured a lease for an area about 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, according to ReNews, an online service on renewable energy news.
Haddad said she received a phone call from Dong about its filing for 800 megawatts with ISO-NE.
It would be Dong’s first offshore wind project in North America, the ReNews report said.
