Only months after the US state of
Massachusetts stunned industry watchers by maxing out its procurement remit with 1.6GW in offshore wind awards, neighbouring Rhode Island has taken up the mantle with a mandate for as much as 1GW of capacity to be auctioned off as early as this October.
Last week the state legislature in Rhode Island – home to the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm, the
30MW Block Island – approved a measure to procure from 600MW-1GW of capacity as part of the state’ effort to achieve 100% renewable power production by 2033.
“Adding offshore wind clean energy capacity is essential for meeting our new 100% renewable energy by 2033 goal and our Act on Climate emissions reductions target,” said governor Dan McKee. “It will create hundreds of jobs as we position Rhode Island as an economic hub of this growing offshore wind industry on the Atlantic coast.”
The new tender comes on top of the 400MW that Rhode Island has already contracted from the
Revolution Wind project, which will also sell 304MW to Connecticut. The added offshore wind plant will power at least 30% of Rhode Island’s estimated 2030 electricity demand, about 340,000 homes annually, and when added to the Revolution and Block Island capacities, will provide some 50% of the state’s needs.
The bill requires Rhode Island’s main utility, Rhode Island Energy, to begin a market-competitive procurement process no later than 15 October, with commissioning expected to meet the 2030 deadline.
Rhode Island’s aggressive procurement targets raise the stakes for southeast New England offshore wind heartland by generating scale and opportunity for the industry while creating supply chain and port risk.
The Massachusetts WEA is the largest in the US, sprawling across some 743,000 acres of shallow waters south of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and east of Long Island, New York, with excellent wind resources that even by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)’s conservative estimation can generate at least 9GW of capacity.
As less than 6GW of offtake has been contracted in both the Massachusetts and the smaller, adjacent Rhode Island WEA, home of the
132MW South Fork and Revolution Wind projects, the area still has capacity to spare.
Moreover, under the BOEM process, a project’s construction and operations plan (COP) may have a project envelope that far exceeds its offtake contract, allowing for additional capacity to be built that could meet Rhode Island’s newly create demand, leveraging economies of scale and avoiding the lengthy federal permitting regimes.
“Having economies of scale provides surety for businesses looking to locate here and grow that work will be available for them for years to come,” William Cotta, supply chain manager for 1.2GW Mayflower Wind project being developed by Shell New Energies and Ocean Winds off Massachusetts, told Recharge.
Rhode Island’s current project, Revolution Wind, has a project envelope of some 1.5GW of plant under its COP, which could allow it to open the remaining capacity for the new tender. BOEM anticipates approving Revolution Wind as soon as April next year.
Revolution Wind’s joint-venturers, Dane Orsted and New England utility Eversource, are likewise developing the
800MW Bay State Wind project. The pair were stunned when Bay State was left flat in Massachusetts’ first two rounds, but Rhode Island’s new procurement will perhaps offer an opportunity to revive the project. Bay State has yet to submit a COP to BOEM, however, which would potentially put the project far behind other acreage that might offer opportunities.
“Rhode Island is an important market to Orsted and Eversource [and] we will consider the RFP (request for proposals) as it becomes available to us and the market,” Meaghan Wims, spokesperson for the JV, told Recharge.
Mayflower Wind is also in a strong position to submit a project. The developer joint venture has
1.2GW of offtake with Massachusetts but the COP sent to BOEM has a project envelope of 2.4GW, giving it plenty of spare capacity that is slated for approval October 2023.
“Mayflower Wind has 1,200MW of available capacity in our lease area,” Mayflower's Cotta told Recharge. “We continue to look at all options for future power purchase agreements with New England states but have made no final decisions at this time as to when and where.”
Avangrid’s New England Wind – a fusion of its 804MW Park City Wind, slated for Connecticut, and its
1.2GW Commonwealth Wind, awarded last year in Massachusetts’ round three tender, is also looking at an October 2023 approval, but the project envelope is only for 2GW-2.3GW of capacity, and its unclear whether the company has enough capacity to take on a new project.
Vineyard Offshore, the Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP)-led firm that emerged from the dissolution of the Vineyard Wind 1 joint venture that spearheaded the US industry, is also a contender into the Rhode Island procurement round, but has yet to advance a project and would not likely meet Rhode Island’s 2030 goal.
Port and supply chain risk
Rhode Island’s time frame for commissioning is tight, and even if permitting risk can be greatly reduced, the state's goals may still conflict with existing projects for port and supply chain resources.
State Pier in New London, Connecticut is already under construction with $75m in investment from the Orsted/Eversource JV and will be deployed as a staging and assembly port for the JV’s Revolution as well as the 132MWSouth Fork Wind and 880MW Sunrise Wind projects, both contracted to New York.
When the total $235m in upgrades are completed, the State Pier should have the capacity for staging 324MW annually,
as estimated by research conducted by the University of Delaware. With over 1.3GW of installation work already in the frame through the rest of the decade, it remains unclear whether the port could handle the increased workload for another 1GW of capacity installation by 2030.
The Orsted-led JV is also investing $40m to expand capacity at ProvPort in Providence, Rhode Island for the assembly of massive transition pieces and other components there, while Quonset Point capacity is also being leveraged for the same projects, but these lack the area to serve as marshalling ports.
Capacity at the
New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal is even tighter, with the 800MW Vineyard Wind 1 to be marshalled out of it, followed by Mayflower’s 1.2GW project, then with Avangrid in the lineup with the first 800MW tranche of its 2GW New England Wind complex.
Avangrid will be dragooning Salem Harbour on the Massachusetts’ north coast as well with an $80m investment, but regional capacities will still be strained.
Transmission is likewise in short supply, with gigawatt-scale transmission capacity needed for the offshore wind sector in the region.
Multiple studies have been conducted highlighting the opportunities for
cost-effective rollout of the offshore wind sector through region-wide, planned transmission, but so far progress has been slow and each developer continues to deliver out its own plan for integration into the grid.
“There is a clear need in New England and across the country for transmission and renewable grid interconnection planning and development,” said Cotta.
“Those conversations are taking place at the federal and RTO levels with state input. The final results of that planning remain unknown but it appears all options are on the table for discussion.”
(Copyright)