US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Cape Wind President Jim Gordon have signed the first lease for an offshore wind farm in the federal waters of the USA.
The lease authorises Cape Wind to construct the 130 turbine offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, and to operate the facility for a period of 25 years. In September the US Department of Energy unveiled a draft plan that calls for the USA to install 54GW of offshore wind power capacity by the year 2030, which would require more than 100 Cape Wind-sized projects.
