Wind-power sector gaining speed

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com 

The offshore-wind sector is slowly paying economic dividends onshore. The latest example is that Prysmian Group, an Italian company, will buy 47 acres on Brayton Point, in Somerset, Mass., to put up a $200-million facility to make subsea transmission cables to bring power generated by offshore wind turbines to the New England grid. It’s nice symbolism because Brayton Point, on beautiful Mount Hope Bay, was the site of New England’s last big coal-fired power plant.

Just down Route 195, there’s a facility to support offshore wind in New Bedford, like the Somerset site in connection with wind-turbine arrays to go up south of New England. The Whaling City facility will handle assembly and deployment of the turbines. And a site in Salem, Mass., is eyed as a staging area for turbine assembly, including for arrays in the Gulf of Maine.