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Massachusetts sets 10 percent of electricity from wind by 2020
BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts set an aggressive target on Tuesday of generating enough electricity from wind to power 10 percent of its needs, or about 800,000 homes, by 2020.
That would require installing enough wind turbines to produce 2,000 megawatts of power, compared to just 6.6 megawatts now, Gov. Deval Patrick said.
"Wind power is going to be a centerpiece of the clean energy economy we are creating for Massachusetts," he said in a written statement.
There are currently proposals in the works to install another 300 wind turbines, which would boost the state's capacity by 800 megawatts, Patrick said.
Foremost among them is the Cape Wind project, which would place some 130 turbines, each 247 feet tall, off the shore of the Cape Cod resort area.
Major producers of wind turbines include Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S, U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co and German engineering group Siemens AG.
(Reporting by Scott Malone, Editing by Jason Szep)
