Largest ever US spend on offshore wind

The announcement, which also included plans to build two offshore wind turbine blade and nacelle manufacturing facilities, said the spending was being made to fulfil New York’s target of having 70% of the state’s electricity coming from renewable energy sources by 2030.

The three offshore projects total 4GW of generation capacity and include:

• Attentive Energy One (1,040MW), by TotalEnergies, Rise Light & Power and Corio Generation
• Community Offshore Wind (1,314MW) by RWE Offshore Renewables and National Grid Ventures
• Excelsior Wind (1,314MW) by Vineyard Offshore (Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners).

The announcement did not include details of exactly where the projects would be sited, but they are all expected to be online by 2030.

“These projects employ a mix of flexible and innovative transmission designs, including a reduced footprint in transmitting energy from offshore wind projects to New York City through high voltage direct current (HVDC) and adaptable “Meshed-Ready” offshore electrical substations,” the announcement said.

More than $100 million will also be spent on training New York’s workforce to build and service offshore wind projects.

Philip Lewis, of the market analysis, strategic planning, business development and project implementation firm Intelatus, sounded a note of caution in response to the announcement.

“New York is a bit of a microcosm in the balancing act that US wind is pulling off – one day you get the headlines that it’s great, that New York’s put the biggest solicitation out there, then the next day you hear that New York has turned down the developers,” he said.

“On a day-to-day basis it sort of goes from feast to famine or crisis to success. But if you look at the long-term picture, effectively the trends are still there.”

He also said that many of the construction vessels would be brought in from Europe.

”There is a huge lump of wind that in the next six months is effectively going to be green lighted it’s and it’s got procurements,” he said. “The two things you need are a permitted project and a state procurement to take you to a final investment decision, then you book your vessels. I’d say they’ve pretty much got a good idea which vessels they’re going to use, which of the European fleet, which are US built.”

“The Department of Energy applauds the significant step that this announcement represents for building an offshore wind energy industry here in the US that revitalises domestic manufacturing and coastal economies, while advancing our clean energy future,” said US secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “New York is showing president Biden’s ’Investing in America’ agenda at work, and DOE looks forward to continued collaboration on project deployment, development of a robust domestic supply chain along with transmission development to help realise both our state and federal offshore wind goals.”