Massachusetts has activated long-term contracts for Vineyard Wind, the state’s first utility-scale offshore wind project. Officials say the move will stabilize prices for 20 years and cut a projected $1.4 billion from customer electricity bills over that period.
The contracts, signed by utilities on behalf of customers, are expected to deliver average direct savings of about 1.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s less than half the peak power prices New England saw during a cold snap this past winter.
The timing matters. During that winter, Vineyard Wind was already feeding electricity into the grid and competing in wholesale markets, and, according to the state, it consistently undercut other sources on price.
Now that the contracts are in effect, those lower prices are locked in.
Vineyard Wind is an 806-megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm that’s about 14 miles off the Massachusetts coast. It started producing electricity in January 2024, after construction began in late 2022. The project reached mechanical completion in Q1 2026.
In 2025 alone, Vineyard Wind installed 624 MW of capacity, helping drive a 261% jump in total US offshore wind capacity that year.
State officials say the project has created nearly 4,000 jobs and generated $1.94 billion in economic output so far.
It’s also expected to cut more than 1.6 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually, roughly equivalent to taking 325,000 gas cars off the road or burning more than 3.7 million barrels of oil.