New York’s fourth offshore wind tender has closed, with bidders including RWE and National Grid Ventures, and Equinor and Ørsted resubmitting projects.
RWE and National Grids bid for a contract for their planned 1.3GW Community Offshore Wind project in the tender – which was launched to recover capacity left in limbo. New York had rejected prior bids involving Equinor’s Empire Wind 1 and Ørsted’s Sunrise projects when the developers asked for higher contract prices.
Equinor confirmed it had resubmitted the planned 816MW Empire Wind 1 project alongside announcing it had parted ways with BP and divided their shared US offshore wind portfolio.
The Empire Wind 1 bid has a competitive price level that will restore profitability, though at the lower end of the company’s guided real base project return rate for renewables of 4-8%, Pal Eitrheim, Equinor’s head of renewables, told Reuters.
Ørsted also recently confirmed it will take full control of the resubmitted Sunrise project if it wins in the solicitation, by buying out 50:50 joint venture partner Eversouce.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Nyserda) expects to notify winners in February and execute contracts in the second quarter. Contracts will include inflation protection.
.png)
HR.jpeg)
.png)
