Orsted pitches 1.4GW Long Island Wind project into New York round 5 US offshore wind tender
Danish developer's bid is based on a cheap lease bought in 2015 that will face off against three projects sponsored mostly by European players on pricy New York Bight acreage
Orsted pitched its 1.4GW Long Island Wind proposal into New York's fifth offshore wind solicitation (NY5) that closed 9 September, bringing the total to four developers targeting at least 2.6GW of capacity on offer.
The Danish developer is the only bidder whose proposal isn’t built on a project that had already been selected in the state’s third round last year that was later voided following a dispute with turbine supplier GE Vernova.
Orsted is pitching its proposal on the strength of its nearly decade of US development experience.
“We have been working in Suffolk County [New York] and developing the project’s offshore site since 2015, providing us with extensive site data and local insights into how to construct the project successfully,” said David Hardy, CEO of Orsted Americas.
“Additionally, we have gathered, refined, and implemented all of the learnings from our industry-leading US portfolio,” he added.
The Danish firm has already completed its 132MW South Fork array to Long Island and has just started offshore construction on its 920MW Sunrise Wind, also to New York.
It recently announced first turbine installed at its 704MW Revolution array split between Connecticut and Rhode Island.
All of these arrays are located in adjacent leases in the Massachusetts-Rhode Island wind energy area (WEA).
Long Island Wind is based on leases 0487, also the location of Revolution, and 0500, the former of the former Bay State project, around 43 miles (69 km) east of Montauk, Long Island’s easternmost point.
Lease 0500 was purchased in 2015 for $281,285 and is up against three proposals based on pricy New York Bight acreage, including RWE-National Grid’s $1.1bn area, the most ever paid for a US offshore wind lease.
The cost of the lease may not be decisive, however, as Orsted’s unsuccessful Sunrise 2 bid in the New York round 3 was based on same area.
Orsted’s bid raises the total stated bid capacity to over 4GW, with RWE-National Grid declining to disclose the exact size of their Community proposal.
Orsted has not had success in recent state contracting tenders, though.
The developer scrapped its 2.25GW Ocean Wind 1 & 2 to New Jersey after project economics didn’t add and opposition mounted and put its 900MW Skipjack arrays to Maryland on hold as well.
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