Most of the initial wind farms off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard plan to bring their electricity ashore on Cape Cod, but some residents are starting to ask why. 

“There are better sites,” said Dave Buzanoski, president of the Falmouth Heights-Maravista Neighborhood Association, on The Codcast. “This power is needed basically on the mainland and there is no reason for it to come via Cape Cod.”

Susanne Conley, who is spearheading opposition to a transmission line proposed to come ashore at Dowses Beach in Osterville, said transmission lines should be feeding into the regional power grid either where the electricity is needed or where existing on-shore transmission capacity is available. The lines shouldn’t be coming into tiny villages on Cape Cod, she said. “If you need a [blood] transfusion, you don’t put it in the capillaries of your finger,” she added. 

Yet the Cape is the place for offshore wind transmission lines — at least initially. Vineyard Wind, which is expected to begin producing electricity later this year, is sending its electricity via transmission lines to a landing spot at Covell’s Beach in Barnstable. Commonwealth Wind is looking to send power from its proposed wind farms to Craigville Beach and to Dowses Beach in Barnstable. And SouthCoast Wind is eyeing transmission lines first to Brayton Point in Somerset and later to Falmouth.

The Cape is the preferred landing spot for the transmission lines for financial and environmental reasons. The Cape is close to the wind farm area off of Martha’s Vineyard, which allows use of a less expensive type of transmission line, and having the transmission lines follow the same general path to a specific area of the Cape reduces their ocean footprint. Onshore, the electric grid infrastructure on the Cape has been beefed up in recent years, allowing for a handful of offshore wind projects to tap in. After those projects are completed, industry officials say, the needed upgrades become too expensive.