Could Canadian offshore wind help Mass. meet climate goals?

 

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Could Canadian offshore wind help Mass. meet climate goals?

July 22, 2025 By Bhaamati Borkhetaria

With the Trump administration creating roadblocks to Massachusetts’s push to meet its climate goals, the Healey administration is eyeing Canadian offshore wind to bring more clean energy to the state, and a key lawmaker is looking to support that effort.

In January, President Trump hit pause on wind projects nationwide, halting all new federal permits on onshore and offshore wind. The latest federal tax bill also dealt the industry a major blow by phasing out the tax credits for offshore wind projects that aren’t in service by the end of 2027.

Massachusetts faces a statutory deadline: It must lock in contracts for at least 5,600 megawatts of offshore wind by 2027. Currently, the state has one offshore wind project – Vineyard Wind 1 – under construction, which will is projected to bring about 800 megawatts to the grid by the end of 2025. The state has delayed finalizing pricing contracts with two other wind developers, which are expected to bring an additional 1,878 megawatts. The state was also planning on purchasing electricity from another project – Vineyard Wind 2 – but the project was shelved in December 2024.

In light of setbacks to wind energy in the US, Massachusetts’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs is potentially looking to procure electricity from planned offshore wind farms in Canada – a development first reported by Canada’s National Observer. Massachusetts officials are exploring the possibility both to meet clean energy goals and to address energy affordability by bringing more electrons to the grid.

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Switching from homegrown to Canadian offshore wind will come with challenges like installing more transmission infrastructure to carry the electricity to the state and will result in fewer construction jobs based in Massachusetts.

A spokesperson for the energy office, Maria Hardiman, said in an email that the state is in “regular communication about emerging opportunities to build new energy sources,” and that they are exploring partnerships with Canada to leverage “significant opportunities to construct new onshore and offshore wind projects across Canada and the Northeast region.”

Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, said that he congratulated the governor’s team for coming up with a creative solution and that he would lead the push for laying the legislative groundwork to enable the Healey administration to seek Canadian offshore wind by extending the procurement deadline for the state.

“This becomes a serious possibility for the mid-term and the long-term,” Barrett told CommonWealth Beacon. “It isn't a short-term substitution for the damage that President Trump is doing to our current offshore wind projects, but there's a lot of promise here.”

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