New England states seeks proposals for regional gigascale offshore wind integration

A consortium of six New England states issued a request for proposals (RfP) for integrating large volumes of renewable energy, especially offshore wind, into the regional transmission grid.

Bids should advance collaboration and helping secure Department of Energy (DoE) Grid Innovation Programme (GIP) funding, the consortium said.

“As we work to achieve our climate goals and increase the generation of renewable energy in the region, we need to invest in our transmission system to deliver clean energy to our residents and businesses,” said Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) commissioner Elizabeth Mahony.

“GIP funding will offset costs for Massachusetts ratepayers and support our clean energy transition,” she added.

The states include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, with support from Vermont, all with ambitious climate and renewable energy goals.

Three of them, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, have combined targets of 9GW of offshore wind capacity but the region is looking at far more as the federal government readies lease sales in the Gulf of Maine.

The same coalition submitted a concept paper to DoE’s first round of GIP funding earlier this year proposing an integrated and expandable at-sea transmission network off New England’s coast to interconnect offshore wind power.

Inadequate transmission is widely recognised as a major hurdle for the offshore wind sector that seeks to integrate massive volumes of energy at coastal tendrils of grids generally designed to transmit electricity from inland power stations.

A study released earlier this year by consultancy Brattle Group found that regional planned offshore wind transmission could save consumers “at least $20bn and reduce environmental and community impacts by 50%”.

Massachusetts and Connecticut have also independently applied for hundreds of millions in federal funding to support onshore transmission system upgrades.

GIP is administered through DoE’s $10.5bn Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) programme funded through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

It is intended to support projects that improve grid reliability and resilience using advanced technologies and innovative partnerships and approaches.

Funding through the DoE program would “offset costs for transmission, storage, and/or distribution infrastructure projects that support clean energy goals, enhance grid reliability and resilience, and provide necessary innovation in project planning and development,” the consortium said.

DoE is expected to announce the first round GIP award recipients later this year.

The plan, jointly announced by DoE and the Department of Interior (DoI), outlines immediate actions necessary to connect the first generation of Atlantic offshore wind projects with grids, and longer-term efforts to support needed transmission over the next several decades.

New England offshore wind

New England states have been at the fore of offshore wind development spurred by excellent near-shore resources adjacent to coastal load centres.

The nation’s first two fully permitted commercial scale offshore wind projects – Vineyard Wind and South Fork – are under construction off Massachusetts and Rhode Island (South Fork will send power to New York’s grid), while multiple other projects are in development in the region.

Rising costs have hit the regional sector hard, though, with nearly all former leader Massachusetts’ contracted capacity cancelled, casualties of high inflation and interest rates.

Massachusetts recently opened its fourth solicitation for 3.6GW to make up for the loss of 2.4GW tendered in earlier solicitations.

Rhode Island also opened its second round for 1GW but failed to attract a viable bid.

Massachusetts’ DOER’s Mahony said its round 4 seeks to capture savings through “alternative developer bids which assume Massachusetts’ first round GIP project is successfully developed”.

The deadline to submit concepts is 20 October this year.