The US offshore wind industry took another heavy hit after the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) cancelled three projects from its third solicitation round.
In October 2023, NYSERDA provisionally awarded three offshore wind projects – the 1.4GW Attentive Energy One, 1.3GW Community Offshore Wind, and the 1.3GW Excelsior Wind.
Attentive Energy One was a project set to be developed by TotalEnergies, Rise Light & Power, and Corio Generation. It was supposed to repurpose the Ravenswood Generating Station into a clean energy hub. Community Offshore Wind, developed by RWE Offshore Renewables and National Grid Ventures, was set to deliver $3.3bn in economic benefits and power more than 500,000 homes. The last project, Excelsior Wind, planned to generate enough power for 700,000 homes and avoid 1.1m tons of carbon pollution annually.
The authority also provisionally awarded $300m of New York State grant funding to GE Vernova and LM Wind Power for nacelle and blade manufacturing which was associated with the provisionally awarded projects.
However, GE Vernova decided to pivot away from the initially proposed 18MW turbine platform to a 15.5/16.5MW turbine, which caused material changes to three proposed projects. That meant that all projects would require more turbines to reach their desired power capacity.
As the developers and GE Vernova could not reach an agreement which would involve the smaller turbines, NYSERDA opted to conclude the solicitation round without any final awards.
Although 2023 was a record year for wind power with 117GW of new wind capacity installed worldwide, a 50% increase from the year before according to the latest Global Wind Report, the US has been facing issues with uncertainty in the sector recently.
Multiple PPAs have ended while companies pulled out of several projects. Rhode Island Energy recently pulled out of its PPA with Ørsted and Eversource for the Revolution Wind 2 offshore project due to higher interest rates, and increased expense, stating that the project had become uneconomical.
Avangrid paid $48m to abandon the PPA with Eversource Energy, National Grid, and Unitil for the 1,2GW Commonwealth Wind project off Martha’s Vineyard. Furthermore, Rhode Island Energy terminated its PPA with Ørsted and Eversource for the Revolution Wind 2 offshore wind farm.
It is not a full stop for offshore wind in New York as the 810MW Empire Wind 1 is moving forward with development as well as the 880MW Sunrise Wind project. Earlier this year, the state saw the completion of the 130MW South Fork Wind project. It was the first completed offshore wind project in the US state.
