Vineyard Wind reaches full operation; Vattenfall signs two Danish sites

Between October 29 and November 6, 2026, Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts reached full commercial operation, Vattenfall signed final contracts for at least 1.8 GW off Denmark and finished the foundations at the wind farm set to become Germany's largest, and Ofgem picked an owner for the Dogger Bank B grid link. The schedules ran both ways: the German foundations finished early, while the British transmission tender produced its preferred bidder about 22 months later than the timetable Ofgem published when the tender opened.

Vineyard Wind 1 reaches full commercial operation

Vineyard Wind 1, the 62-turbine wind farm about 15 miles off Massachusetts, reached full commercial operations on Thursday, October 29, 2026, Vineyard Wind spokesperson Craig Gilvarg wrote in an email to WBUR, which reported it on November 6. WBUR puts the turbines' capability at 800 megawatts and calls it the country's largest offshore wind project to be federally permitted and constructed.

With Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind both finished, New England heads into winter with significantly more clean energy on the grid than in years past, WBUR says. Revolution Wind is the 704 MW farm off Rhode Island that Ørsted said on November 5 was fully commissioned in October. "New England is better off now that we have not one but TWO fully commercially operational projects," Katie Segal, senior director of offshore wind for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, wrote in a text, per WBUR. Vineyard Wind's own word came in a statement to reporters, eight days after the date it names; its press-release page carried no announcement as of November 7.

The milestone is the last one, not the first power. Vineyard Wind's 20-year contracts with National Grid, Eversource and Unitil were activated in April, and output from commissioned turbines has been sold since then at a fixed average price of $69.50 per megawatt-hour, the Martha's Vineyard Times reports. The road there ran through a stop-work order: in late December 2025, with the $4.5 billion project 95% complete, the Trump administration halted it and four other projects under construction, before the projects were allowed to resume, according to WBUR.

Vattenfall signs for at least 1.8 GW off Denmark

Vattenfall and the Danish Energy Agency have signed the final agreements for the Hesselø and Holmsland offshore wind projects, which together will add at least 1.8 GW, Vattenfall said on November 4. Hesselø, in the Kattegat, has a minimum capacity of 800 MW; Holmsland, in the North Sea near Hvide Sande, has a minimum of 1,000 MW and is the renamed North Sea I Mid. Vattenfall expects both to be operational by 2032, and any decision to build them remains subject to final investment decisions and approvals.

The prices were settled in August. Vattenfall's subsidiaries bid 504 Danish kroner per megawatt-hour for North Sea I Mid (Nordsøen Midt in Danish) and 542 kroner for Hesselø, the lowest bid at each site, and the winner is guaranteed its bid price for 20 years from completion, the agency said on August 4. Hesselø drew five bids and North Sea I Mid two. The agency's wording on timing is firmer than the developer's: it says the parks are to be completed by 2032 at the latest.

Nordlicht I has all 68 foundations in

Vattenfall has finished installing all 68 foundations for Nordlicht I, about 85 kilometres north of Borkum in the German North Sea, ahead of schedule, it said on November 2. The last monopile went in at the end of September, and every transition piece is now installed as well. By how much the work beat its schedule, the release does not say.

At around 980 MW, Nordlicht I is set to become Germany's largest individual offshore wind farm, and with Nordlicht II, planned at around 630 MW, the cluster will exceed 1.6 GW. EEW Special Pipe Constructions and CS WIND Offshore made the foundations and DEME installed them; the first Vestas tower sections have reached Esbjerg. Vattenfall expects first power from the cluster from 2028, with full commissioning planned for 2029.

Ofgem names a preferred bidder for the Dogger Bank B link

Ofgem has named Diamond Transmission Partners, a consortium of Diamond Transmission UK Limited and Chubu Electric Power, preferred bidder for the offshore transmission assets of the Dogger Bank B wind farm, according to a notice published November 5. Preferred is not yet final: before it becomes the successful bidder, the consortium must have its contractual, funding, regulatory and operational arrangements ready for the asset transfer and the licence, put a bilateral agreement in place with the holder of a co-ordination licence, accede to the System Operator – Transmission Owner Code, and resolve any other matters Ofgem determines are necessary.

The link will connect 1.2 GW and carried an estimated value of £919.3 million when Ofgem shortlisted four bidders in July 2024. Diamond made that list as a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation and returns with a Japanese utility beside it. Chubu's autumn at home has been less tidy: in September its board decided to withdraw its applications for Hamaoka nuclear units 3 and 4 after an inquiry into its seismic data.

The tender ran long. Ofgem's February 2024 pre-qualification document set pre-qualification bids for May 1, 2024 and pencilled in the preferred-bidder announcement for January 2025, while reserving the right to vary the timetable. Ofgem's Hornsea 3 tender, launched in October 2026, allows itself more room: pre-qualification bids are due January 14, 2027, and the preferred bidder is expected in mid-January 2028.