Vineyard Wind has 62 wind turbines planned for 15 miles southwest of the island. Seventeen are already operating, the company said.
Each one is 812 feet tall, nearly 22 times the size of the Green Monster at Fenway Park. Each blade is the size of a football field.
On clear nights, the blinking red lights make it look like Logan Airport.
“I don’t like all this mess out on the horizon, all the flashing red lights each night,” says one fisherman, who asked that he not be named.
“When you come out here you expect peace and serenity and it’s flashing lights out there, it just messes with your psyche.”
In some ways, the situation here is a microcosm of this divided nation.
The town of Nantucket supports clean renewable energy and Vineyard Wind has said its wind farm would generate clean energy for 400,000 homes in Massachusetts.
But on July 24, 2024, a turbine blade broke off and sent large pieces of sharp fiberglass and other debris into the ocean. Debris washed up on the beaches of Nantucket during the height of the summer tourist season. Vineyard Wind lost a lot of supporters when it took two days to notify island authorities.
The mess has long since been cleaned up but the damage has been done.
The town says they are still committed to renewable energy, but their relationship with Vineyard Wind has been strained. That’s due to “empty pledges and unfulfilled commitments” according to Nantucket Select Board member Brooke Mohr. There are still a lot of questions blowing in the wind.
Light pollution remains a problem. On July 31, Vineyard Wind announced it had installed a new lighting system activated by radar. The system meets Federal Aviation Administration rules that pilots must be able to see wind turbines at night.
The flashing red lights should only go on for only a short time, while the approaching aircraft nears the area. Vineyard Wind says this new system will be active for an estimated four hours total per year.
But Greg Werkheiser, legal counsel to the town for offshore wind matters, says officials are “skeptical” of its compliance. “The community is not just taking their word for it,” he said in a telephone interview.
On a recent visit, the Globe witnessed the lights flashing multiple times and for several minutes at a time and certainly at a far greater elapsed time than Vineyard Wind claims. Sometimes the red lights were flashing when Flight Tracker showed no aircraft in the immediate area.
Several interview requests with Vineyard Wind were made.
“Thank you for your inquiry. We will decline to comment,” said Vineyard Wind communications director Craig Gilvarg in an email.
Gary Gut, who can see the wind turbines in the distance from his house in Madaket, says he doesn’t have an issue with wind energy.
“The only thing I wish they would fix is the flashing red lights. They’re only supposed to come on when a plane is nearby. Right now, they’re all flashing at the same time at night. It’s supposed to be temporary, but they’ve been promising to fix it. Otherwise, it’s fine.”
The future of the offshore wind industry is not fine, however.
The Trump administration has canceled $679 million in federal funding for a dozen offshore wind projects, including a $5 billion wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is 80 percent completed. Trump has said that wind turbines drive whales “loco” and cause whales deaths, a charge that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says is unproven.
He has also called them “very expensive, very ugly energy.“
Unlike other wind projects in development, Vineyard Wind has not been issued a stop-work order from the administration.
Here on Nantucket, some people seem hesitant to criticize the president or his policies.
“You don’t have to give your name,” one woman counseled her husband who started talking to a reporter. “Don’t.”
Alison, an interval homeowner who would not give her last name, says she likes wind power, but the visual pollution bothers her.
“I mean, this is such a beautiful, beautiful place. It just ruins the horizon.”
George Drapeau, a longtime visitor from Armonk, N.Y., says turbines could help replace fossil fuels.
“You may like or you may not like sustainable energy, but wind is a factor. The planet heats, the planet cools. And so as we move from high pressure to low pressure areas, the wind moves, and with it, turbines can take advantage of that.”
He says politics have played too large a role in this.
“Trump is against this because the fossil fuel industry is such a big supporter of his.”
But he worries that current technology will quickly change.
“That probably will go the way of the buggy whip,” he says.
Ken Gammill, of New Canaan, Conn. agrees.
“My concern is that in 10, 15, 20 years, there’ll be the next different way to power us up in a green fashion, and those will be relics out in the water.”