The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced its approval of Sunrise Wind’s plan for construction and operations (COP). The approval of the COP is in line with BOEM’s permitting timeline and follows the agency’s issuance of its Record of Decision in March 2024, which concluded the thorough BOEM-led environmental review of the project.

Ørsted and Eversource reached these provisions and protections working closely with a range of external organisations and experts, a commitment the companies carry to all stakeholder relationships to help ensure coexistence. 

The Sunrise Wind offshore project—to be located south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and east of Block Island, Rhode Island—will have a total capacity of 924-megawatts of clean, renewable energy that could power more than 320,000 homes per year. The project will support more than 800 direct jobs each year during the construction phase and about 300 jobs annually during the operations phase.

"BOEM’s approval of the Sunrise Wind project represents another step in building a thriving offshore wind energy industry,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “The Biden-Harris administration continues to demonstrate its commitment to advancing responsible projects like Sunrise Wind as part of our strategy to foster good paying jobs for local communities, ignite economic development, and fight the harmful effects of climate change."   

During the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of the Interior has approved the first eight commercial-scale offshore wind energy projects in federal waters with a combined capacity of more than 10 gigawatts of clean energy—enough to power nearly 4 million homes. BOEM has held four offshore wind lease auctions, including sales in the New York New Jersey region, offshore the Carolinas, and the first-ever sales offshore the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.