The 3000 plus islands of New England with their varying electrical needs and high electricity costs present an opportunity for renewable energy development. This paper summarizes the results of ongoing wind energy projects carried out by the University of Massachusetts for the development of renewable energy on several of these islands. In addition to technical-economic issues, the work has addressed potential environmental and political problems that might arise with the installation of such systems. Summaries of four selected case studies involving this work are given in this paper. The overall analysis method used to study each of these studies is described, and the example case studies present a status of the work to date on each of these projects. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.