3 New York wind farms scrapped
by Bruce Mohl, April 20, 2024, commonwealthbeacon.org
New York pulled the plug Friday on three offshore wind projects that encountered pricing problems after GE canceled the development of a larger turbine that the developers had been counting on.
The decision is a setback for the US offshore wind industry and may have some cost implications for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which are in the midst of a joint procurement for offshore wind power.
The three wind farms proposed for the coast off New York were all tied to a plan by GE Vernova to start producing giant 18-megawatt turbines at a facility on the Hudson River to be subsidized by the state.
When GE announced in February that it wouldn’t be building the 18-megawatt turbines and instead would focus on constructing 15.5 megawatt turbines, the pricing of the three wind farms was thrown off. (Using smaller turbines would mean a need for more turbines and thus higher costs.) The companies ultimately decided they could no longer go forward with pricing in the $150-per-megawatt-hour range and the deals, which had received preliminary approvals, were scrapped. New York officials say a $300 million state subsidy for the GE plant will be withdrawn.
The three developer teams included Vineyard Offshore and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners; RWE Offshore Renewables and National Grid Ventures; and TotalEnergies, Ride Light and Power, and Corio Generation.
Vineyard Offshore is also bidding in the New England procurement and currently partnering with Avangrid to build Vineyard Wind 1.
Vineyard Wind 1 is using 13.6-megawatt turbines from GE Vernova. It’s contracted price, negotiated before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, is $89 per megawatt hour. Three other wind farm deals were negotiated and approved in Massachusetts at less than $80 a megawatt hour, but all three were terminated when interest rates and inflation took off.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2024/04/20/3-new-york-wind-farms-scrapped/