Poll: Large bipartisan support for Mass. offshore wind projects
Photo | courtesy of Vineyard Wind
Officials from the state government and Vineyard Wind, the offshore wind project key to the Massachusetts renewable energy goals, celebrate the construction of facilities on Martha's Vineyard in May 2023.
There is bipartisan support among Massachusetts voters for building offshore wind projects off the state's coast, a new poll conducted for an offshore wind developer found as the industry gears up to bid a new slate of potential projects amid choppy waters.
Beacon Research surveyed 1,013 Massachusetts voters online between late November and early December. Sponsored by Vineyard Offshore, the poll found that 77 percent of Bay State voters favor building offshore wind projects -- 42 percent "somewhat favor" offshore wind development and 35 percent were "strongly" favorable. Fourteen percent of voters said they oppose offshore wind development.
Support for offshore wind registered at roughly two-thirds or more among each partisan group -- 84 percent of Democrats view it favorably, followed by 71 percent of independents (the largest group of Massachusetts voters), and 65 percent among Republicans. Support levels were similar among people who live in coastal communities (72 percent) and those who live inland (75 percent).
"Voters in Massachusetts feel very positively about offshore wind as a source of electricity for the state and think that offshore wind should have a major role in the state’s electricity generation. Using offshore wind to provide clean energy, helping Massachusetts to reach its climate goals, and helping to improve the economy by creating new jobs are all benefits voters see offshore wind providing for the state," Beacon Research wrote in its executive summary of the survey.
Christian Scorzoni, Vineyard Offshore's head of external affairs, said it's "incredibly encouraging that Massachusetts residents continue to strongly embrace wind as a critical resource in our energy mix."
Vineyard Offshore is among a handful of developers that could submit a bid by the end of January as Massachusetts seeks up to 3,600 megawatts of capacity. The Vineyard Wind 1 project that Vineyard Offshore developed in partnership with Avangrid plans to operate at its full capacity of 806 MW by the end of 2024.
The price of offshore wind power is expected to go up markedly in the next procurement round, which some policymakers worry could turn ratepayers off from the transition to cleaner energy.
Vineyard Offshore's poll was conducted at the end of 2023. The year began with developers terminating contracts for offshore power or writing down the value of their investments in the sector. It ended with Vineyard Wind 1, the first offshore wind project in Massachusetts' pipeline, missing its self-imposed year-end deadline for delivering first power (one turbine delivered 5 megawatts of power late on Jan. 2).
And up and down the East Coast, the push among states to transition to offshore wind power is meeting resistance on multiple fronts. In some cases, it's local groups that are concerned about the impact of cable landings and grid connections in their communities. In other cases, researchers at Brown University reported last month, groups with financial stakes in the fossil fuel world are stoking opposition.
"With increasing frequency and coordination, national-level fossil fuel interests have involved themselves with grassroots-appearing groups in a half dozen states along the Eastern Seaboard," Brown University's Climate and Development Lab wrote in its "Against the Wind" report. "As offshore wind power has gained international prominence as a vital climate solution, and as a wave of offshore wind projects finally enter development in the United States, they have been met with a remarkable, highly coordinated network of resistance."
New Jersey was highlighted in the Brown report, with its authors pointing out that whale conservation and "other anti-OSW rhetoric became a key talking point for Republicans in New Jersey during the 2023 election season." And a recent poll from that state shows how support for offshore wind has eroded in recent years as the industry moved closer to becoming a reality.
The William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University said in September that 50 percent of New Jersey residents supported plans to build wind turbines at sea to generate electricity, 33 percent were opposed and 16 percent were unsure.
"The results reflect a drop of 30 percentage points from the findings of a September 2019 Stockton Poll that asked an identical question. In 2019, 80% of adult New Jersey residents supported offshore wind farms," the center said in a press release. "Four years ago, 77% of residents living in areas that border the ocean or a bay supported offshore wind turbines. Only 33% of coastal area respondents favor such construction in the poll released today."
During a State House News Service/MassterList event on offshore wind last month, industry representatives acknowledged that they face an uphill battle to convince all kind of stakeholders -- impacted communities, unions, environmental organizations and more -- of the benefits of offshore wind as a way to counter disinformation and coordinated opposition campaigns.
"We need a broad base of support that understands the depth and breadth of this industry and the benefits it brings across the board. It isn't just a kilowatt hour, it isn't just jobs, it's climate change, it's all these other things," Carrie Hitt, senior director for grid policy and strategy at Vineyard Offshore, said. "And we, at the basic level, work with stakeholders every day for all sorts of things to make these projects happen. And that will build the base to help us see through whatever political changes we anticipate."
Hitt said it will be important for the industry to build that support broadly, not just for specific projects.
Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, added that developers are not often trusted voices when it comes to local debates that involve their projects because of their obvious self-interest.
"So I think we all need to figure out how we effectively counter misinformation and also how we create trusted voices with that, that can bring true and credible information to communities like Barnstable and Falmouth and Somerset, who are really wrestling with this right now," she said.
In Barnstable, the group Save Greater Dowses Beach has dedicated itself to preventing the use of an Osterville beach as the landing spot for an Avangrid export cable. The group is hosting a conference at the Hyport Conference Center later this month that it says "will focus attention on less harmful and costly ways to develop offshore wind energy while minimizing the damage and disruption to residents and businesses that operate offshore and onshore."
Ken Kimmell, vice president of offshore wind development at Avangrid, has worked closely with the town and said it's important for developers to acknowledge that their projects will cause disruption in towns that host cable landings or other infrastructure. Barnstable is going to install new sewer lines along the roads that will be ripped up as part of Avangrid's project, and Kimmel said it will "save the town millions of dollars" since Avangrid is paying most of the costs.
"You can't go in and pretend that there's no impact. There is an impact, it's disruptive. You have to acknowledge it, you have to come up with a benefit that's being offered that mitigates for that, and then you have to -- and Elizabeth is right -- you really have to counter the misinformation that is spreading like wildfire," he said.
Kimmell said he hears "the same talking points in Virginia that I'm seeing in Barnstable."
"Every group starts out by saying the same thing. They say, 'We're not against clean energy. We're in favor of clean energy, just not here.' If every group gets their wish, it's not a NIMBY problem, it's a BANANA problem -- Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody," he said at last month's event. "If that's where we end up, we will not get these wind farms built. So we've got to deal with this issue, and it is a hard one."
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