Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects

Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dennery, Pierre
Other Authors: Henry Birdseye Weil.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99009
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author Dennery, Pierre
author2 Henry Birdseye Weil.
author_facet Henry Birdseye Weil.
Dennery, Pierre
author_sort Dennery, Pierre
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description Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015.
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spelling mit-1721.1/990092019-04-09T18:41:01Z Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects Dennery, Pierre Henry Birdseye Weil. Sloan School of Management. Sloan School of Management. Sloan School of Management. Thesis: S.M. in Management Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (pages 50-53). Cape Wind was supposed to become the first offshore wind farm in the United States. In 2015, more than 10 years after its inception, a single turbine has yet to be produced and the project is at a dead end. Facing a strong local opposition, it has suffered numerous setbacks that eventually led to huge delays affecting its timeline. Understanding what happened in this particular project and what could have been done differently could help the industry go forward with new plans to develop offshore wind in the United States. In this paper, we have built a System Dynamics model to simulate the dynamics of support, opposition, financial certainty and technology that can affect an offshore wind farm during its approval process. We show that contrary to a common idea, the relatively lower environmental awareness fifteen years ago was not a major cause for the to date failure of Cape Wind. Rather, it is the level of advocacy against the project at its beginning that has the most impact on its overall timeline. Major efforts should therefore be devoted to defuse the most vehement opponents right from the beginning, rather than trying to convince more people to support it. We also show that changes in plans during the approval process to increase its NPV can have a strong impact on the project timeline. Lastly, contrary to our hypothesis, we see that a regulatory framework doesn't necessarily mean a faster approval process. by Pierre Dennery. S.M. in Management Research 2015-09-29T18:58:04Z 2015-09-29T18:58:04Z 2015 2015 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99009 921186744 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 53 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Sloan School of Management.
Dennery, Pierre
Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title_full Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title_fullStr Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title_full_unstemmed Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title_short Case study of Cape Wind : identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
title_sort case study of cape wind identifying success and failure modes of offshore wind projects
topic Sloan School of Management.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99009
work_keys_str_mv AT dennerypierre casestudyofcapewindidentifyingsuccessandfailuremodesofoffshorewindprojects