following month, five major bids were submitted. In May 2018, Baker's administration selected Vineyard Wind to construct an 800-megawatt offshore wind farm off the southern coast of Martha's Vineyard, and the following October, Vineyard Wind announced that it had signed an 18-month lease to also conduct their staging operations at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal. In December 2018, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced the sale of three wind lease plots of 390,000 acres of ocean south of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard to Equinor Wind, Mayflower Wind, and Vineyard Wind for a national record of $405 million that the agency estimated could generate as much as 4,100 megawatts of wind power. In May 2021, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced that a record of decision had been issued giving final federal approval for the Vineyard Wind project. An Offshore Wind Study published in mid-2020 analyzed procuring an additional 1.6 GW of off-shore capacity in addition to the 1.6 GW already in progress. In late 2020, the Baker Administration released a Decarbonization Roadmap that aims for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan calls for major investments in offshore wind and solar energy. Capacity Installed The following table shows the growth in wind power installed nameplate capacity in MW for Massachusetts since 1999. Potential In early 2010, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released the first comprehensive update of wind energy potential by state since 1993, showing that Massachusetts had potential to install 1,028 MW of onshore wind power, using 80 meter high wind turbines, and 1,913 MW of 100 MW wind turbines could achieve 30% or better capacity factor - and of those, almost 500 MW could reach a capacity factor of 40%. Locations In 2009, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) contracted Navigant Consulting to determine new locations of potential wind turbine sites throughout the state. The study identified 44 locations with 947 MW of potential power. The locations are centrally focused in the Berkshire and Barnstable counties. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs has this information publicly available with a Wind Energy Site Screening Tool. See also Solar power in Massachusetts Cape Wind List of offshore wind farms in the United States Wind power in the United States Renewable energy in the United States References External links Vineyard Wind official site New England Wind Forum official webpage