Avangrid's 2.6 GW Two-Phased Offshore Wind Project Could Get Federal Go-Ahead in April | Offshore Wind - Offshore WIND
Avangrid's 2.6 GW Two-Phased Offshore Wind Project Could Get Federal Go-Ahead in April | Offshore Wind
Avangrid’s 2.6 GW Two-Phased Offshore Wind Project Could Get Federal Go-Ahead in April
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed its environmental review of the 2.6 GW New England Wind offshore wind project, proposed to be built in a lease area off Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York.
BOEM has now published a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the project and expects to issue a record of decision (ROD) in April.
New England Wind is a phased project being developed by Park City Wind LLC, a project company owned by Avangrid, the US arm of the Spanish renewable energy developer Iberdrola, within an area adjacent to Vineyard Wind 1, the first large-scale offshore wind farm under construction in the US.
Phase 1 is the Park City Wind offshore wind farm, which will have an installed capacity of at least 804 MW. Phase 2 is Commonwealth Wind, planned to have an installed capacity of up to 1,725 MW, according to the documents at BOEM.
The two-phased project plan submitted for federal approval includes up to 129 wind turbines and up to five offshore export cables that would transmit electricity to onshore transmission systems in the Town of Barnstable and Bristol County, Massachusetts.
Avangrid had already secured power purchase agreements (PPAs) for the two projects with the state electric distribution companies in Massachusetts (for Commonwealth Wind) and Connecticut (for Park City Wind). However, the developer terminated both PPAs last year, with plans to re-enter the projects into new state solicitations.
On the federal level, the approval process has been underway since 2021. The developer submitted a construction and operation plan (COP) in July 2020 and, following initial review, BOEM started the environmental review in the summer of 2021.
In December 2022, BOEM published a draft EIS, initiating a 60-day public comment period that closed in February 2023, through which the federal agency received input and feedback that informed the now-issued final EIS.
The two projects making up New England Wind were being developed by Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) until 2021, when the two partners restructured their 50/50 joint venture in the United States and Avangrid Renewables took over the lease rights for the two offshore wind projects.
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Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.