Vineyard Wind 1 and Revolution Wind Now Power New England

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes · Last updated: 11 November 2026

Vineyard Wind 1 is the roughly 800 megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm about 15 miles south of Martha's Vineyard. It reached full commercial operation on 29 October 2026. In the same month, Ørsted's 704 MW Revolution Wind began commercial operation under contracts with utilities in Rhode Island and Connecticut. Together, the two farms give New England roughly 1,500 MW of offshore wind heading into winter. For Massachusetts, the milestone has a hollow side. Vineyard Wind 1 is the first and so far only offshore farm built for the state under its 2016 clean energy law, as first reported by State House News Service. No other offshore wind farms sit in the state's pipeline.

With the project at full commercial operation alongside Revolution Wind, offshore wind will bring down the price of electricity even further in New England.

Maura Healey, Governor of Massachusetts

How Vineyard Wind 1 Recovered From a Shattered Blade

Vineyard Wind 1 has a capacity of about 800 MW and sits roughly 15 miles south of Martha's Vineyard. It first sent electricity ashore in early 2024. That summer, one of its huge blades broke apart. The failure stopped the farm and prompted investigations.

Generation came back in part by January 2025. Full output took much longer. The farm reached complete commercial operation on Thursday, 29 October 2026. Vineyard Wind spokesman Craig Gilvarg confirmed that date by email after it had already been reported elsewhere.

Gilvarg put it this way: "On Thursday, October 29, Vineyard Wind 1 reached full commercial operations, further strengthening New England's energy supply." His statement presents the milestone as a gain in supply. The longer story is the recovery. Partial restart came about half a year after the blade broke, and full output came close to two more years after that.

Revolution Wind Joins the Grid as Ørsted Builds Elsewhere

Ørsted, the Denmark-based offshore wind developer, published financial results on 5 November 2026. The results highlighted the start of commercial operation at Revolution Wind off Rhode Island. The company said it had finished installing the last turbines at the 704 MW farm, which serves Rhode Island and Connecticut. It said the project reached commercial operation in October under its offtake contracts with utilities in both states. An offtake contract is a long-term agreement in which a buyer commits to purchase a project's output.

The same results reported a German offshore farm entering commercial operation. They also reported construction milestones in Taiwan, Poland and the U.K. Ørsted said its construction portfolio was progressing "according to schedule and on budget." It described its 2,852 MW Hornsea 3 project in the United Kingdom as "the world's largest offshore wind farm project." That ranking is Ørsted's own claim.

Ørsted is also building closer to New England. It has placed every turbine foundation at Sunrise Wind, a 924 MW farm between Martha's Vineyard and Montauk Point that will supply New York customers. Commercial operation there is planned for 2027. The company has also begun building the 200 MW Blackwater Solar project, and it acknowledged pressure from rising interest rates and tariff costs.

Wind Supplied 7.3% of New England Power on Tuesday

Data from ISO New England, the region's grid operator, shows where the new capacity fits. At about 12:45 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 November 2026, wind from all sources was delivering about 856 MW to the grid. That was 45% of the renewable power on the system at that moment, and roughly 7.3% of all power available.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said full operation at Vineyard Wind 1 would boost grid reliability this winter. She also argued that, with Revolution Wind running too, offshore wind will push New England electricity prices down further. She gave no figures for that price effect, so it remains a forecast rather than a measured result.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee called Revolution Wind a major win for his state's workers and energy future. He said finishing the project, and defending it against interference by the Trump Administration, ranked among the highlights of his time in office.

The Conservation Law Foundation pointed to South Fork Wind off Block Island, whose dozen turbines power about 70,000 Long Island homes and businesses. The group argued that the 65 turbines at Revolution Wind could be central to covering winter demand.

A 2019 Federal Review Knocked Vineyard Wind 1 Off Schedule

The farm's completion was never assured. Its developers had planned to close financing and begin onshore work in 2019. They aimed to place the first turbine in the seabed in 2021 and produce power in 2022.

That plan broke down in summer 2019. The Trump administration began a broad study of how offshore wind farms planned along the East Coast might have effects, and the study held up a key permit for Vineyard Wind 1. On 1 December 2019, the developer pulled the project from federal review. The administration then declared that review "terminated."

The project restarted under President Joe Biden. In February 2021, less than a month after he took office, the federal government resumed the review from where it had stopped. By May 2021, the Biden administration had approved the farm's construction and operations plan, which cleared the way for building to begin. First power ultimately arrived about two years later than the original target. McKee's remark about protecting Revolution Wind shows that federal politics still hangs over these projects.

Why Massachusetts Has Nothing Lined Up Next

Massachusetts utilities chose Vineyard Wind 1, with input from the Baker administration, to fulfil part of the 2016 clean energy law. Projects selected after it did not survive. Their developers concluded that worsening conditions endangered their financing, and those contracts were terminated.

Procurements are the competitive rounds in which the state solicits new offshore wind projects. The next rounds have been pushed back on at least six occasions, so the process now trails its original timetable by over two and a half years.

State officials once estimated that Massachusetts would need to add about 1 gigawatt of new offshore wind each year in the 2030s. That pace was meant to meet the state's binding midcentury decarbonization targets. With no farms in the pipeline, the gap between that estimate and reality is the main policy problem left after this autumn's milestones.

What could help or hold back New England offshore wind

The bottom line

New England now has two large offshore wind farms running at full commercial operation. ISO New England's data shows wind already supplying a measurable slice of the region's power. Those are real gains for a technology that spent years tied up in federal review and recovering from a broken blade. The harder question belongs to Massachusetts. The state needs about 1 gigawatt a year of new offshore wind in the 2030s, by its own officials' estimate, yet it has nothing in the pipeline. The next tests are how both farms handle winter 2026-27, whether Sunrise Wind arrives in 2027 as planned, and whether Massachusetts can restart procurement after six delays.

What to watch

• Watch how Vineyard Wind 1 and Revolution Wind perform through winter 2026-27, the season Gov. Maura Healey says the farms will make the grid more reliable.
• Ørsted's 924 MW Sunrise Wind, which will serve New York, is planned to begin commercial operation in 2027.
• Watch for Massachusetts to restart its offshore wind procurement after at least six delays; no new date was given.