US completes review of 2.6GW Avangrid offshore wind plans
US completes review of 2.6GW Avangrid offshore wind plans | Windpower Monthly
The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has completed its environmental review of Avangrid’s proposed two-phase New England Wind project off Massachusetts.
It consists of two offshore wind farms – the New England phase 1 project, also known as Park City, and the New England phase 2 project, also known as Commonwealth.
The projects could have a combined capacity of up to 2.6GW, according to BOEM.
“Diverse public input was essential to BOEM’s careful and thorough analysis of the environmental impact of the proposed New England Wind project,” said BOEM director Elizabeth Klein.
Power purchase agreements (PPA) for Park City were terminated with the state of Connecticut, and PPAs with Commonwealth were terminated with Massachusetts.
In October 2023, Avangrid said that it was considering bidding the projects in the tri-state auction on 27 March. The three states are Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Offshore wind developers off the US east coast have been struggling with inflation and supply chain bottlenecks and several have terminated PPAs saying their projects had become unfinanceable.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
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.