February 16, 2019
New York

Equinor, 3 JVs vie for offshore wind power park in New York

Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Susan Thomas, Lisa Shumaker and Subhranshu Sahu | Reuters | February 14, 2019 | reuters.com

New York State said on Thursday it had received proposals from Norway’s Equinor and three joint ventures to build its first offshore wind power park of at least 800-megawatt capacity.

The three joint ventures are Bay State Wind, between Danish Orsted and Eversource Energy; Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, consisting of France’s EDF and Shell; and Vineyard Wind, between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, the New York States Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) said in a statement.

New York state closed bidding on.ny.gov/2E54m5q for the park on Thursday, a part of its push to increase renewable energy production, and will choose a supplier in the spring.

“The response to New York’s inaugural solicitation for 800 megawatts or more of offshore wind is unprecedented and historic,” NYSERDA said.

Proposals include projects to build up to 1,200 MW of capacity, which if constructed would be the largest offshore wind project in the United States, it added.

Equinor, which won a U.S. federal auction in 2016 to lease 80,000 acres south of Long Island, said the area could potentially allow it to build an offshore wind park of up to 2,000 MW.

The company says on its website that investments for a 1 GW offshore wind project would typically be about $3 billion.

EDPR, a renewable energy arm of Portuguese energy firm EDP, had been among the companies which expressed preliminary interest to bid by the Dec. 20 deadline.

EDPR was not immediately available to comment.

NYSERDA said the first offshore wind solicitation should help advance New York State’s plans to reach a goal of building 9,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2035.

Unlike Europe, the United States is taking initial steps in developing the country’s offshore wind capacity, but its huge market has already attracted key players.

Equinor, previously known as Statoil, has also said it was looking at possibility of building floating offshore wind turbines in deeper waters off the U.S. coastline.

(This story has been refilled to correct to show Bay State Wind includes Eversource Energy, and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind includes Shell, not the other way around)


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/02/16/equinor-3-jvs-vie-for-offshore-wind-power-park-in-new-york/