(Photo: One of Ørsted’s turbines in Walney, United Kingdom. Credit: Ørsted)[/caption]
New York completed the single largest renewable energy procurement in any US state’s history, awarding two offshore wind projects that total nearly 1.7 gigawatts. The winning bids were Sunrise Wind for 880 MW and Equinor for 816 MW.
Both projects will have a combined economic activity of $3.2 billion statewide, according to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo. Since March 2018, New York has awarded approximately 4.7 gigawatts of new large-scale renewable energy contracts.
By awarding these latest contracts, Cuomo says he’s moving closer to his goal of reaching 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035. Earlier this year he had quadrupled that target as part of his multibillion-dollar Green New Deal. In April Cuomo added $280 million for energy storage projects in New York.
Sunrise Wind is a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource. The project owners say they entered into a memorandum of understanding with state transmission developers Con Edison Transmission and the New York Power Authority, which will support the development of transmission facilities that deliver the new offshore wind energy to the grid.
Equinor was selected to negotiate a long-term contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) for offshore wind renewable energy certificates (ORECs). The Norwegian energy company, which currently has four offshore wind projects in the UK and Germany, also recently acquired a lease for 128,000 acres in federal waters off the coast of Massachusetts.
Both project developers committed to boosting the state’s manufacturing and port infrastructure, Cuomo’s office said.
“A total of $287 million will be invested in cutting-edge infrastructure in multiple regions of the state, including the Capital Region, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Long Island,” the governor’s office stated. “These financial commitments will unlock private supply chain capital and maximize the long-term economic benefits to the state from the regional development of offshore wind.”
Last month neighboring New Jersey signed a deal with Ørsted for a 1.1 GW capacity offshore wind farm to be constructed off the coast of Atlantic City. That represented the largest offshore wind procurement by any US state at the time.
