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Ørsted Has New U.S. Wind Partner as Eversource Exits and GIP Enters

October 2, 2024 — Institutional investors continue to show interest in the developing offshore energy sector demonstrated by the closing of a deal that rearranges the partnership for Ørsted in its U.S. offshore wind energy projects. Global Infrastructure Partners, which was acquired by famed group BlackRock, completed the previously announced deal to buy Eversource Energy’s 50 percent interest in two wind farms with Ørsted.

Eversource had previously announced its intent to exit the offshore wind sector to focus on operations as a pure-play regulated pipes and wires utility. They agreed earlier this year to sell their share of the planned Sunrise Wind project to Ørsted and yesterday completed the sale of its shares in South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). While Eversource has exited its offshore wind investments, the company remains a contractor on the ongoing onshore construction scope for Revolution Wind, and a tax equity investor in South Fork Wind.

The final price for the 50 percent shares of the two U.S. offshore wind farms was $745 million, which was reduced by approximately $375 million from the original value of $1.12 billion on the deal. Eversource cited increased construction costs and delays for Revolution Wind. With a $370 million gain on the separate sale of Sunrise Wind, Eversource still expects to record a loss of $520 million for the divestiture of its offshore wind interests.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

RHODE ISLAND: This major offshore wind company just announced a big Providence expansion

September 3, 2024 — The Danish offshore wind developer that owns America’s first offshore wind farm and is building a second, much larger wind project off the Rhode Island coast is expanding its presence in the Ocean State.

Ørsted is moving its office in Providence, one of two co-headquarters for the company’s U.S. operations, into a new 17,470-square-foot space at 500 Exchange St. to accommodate a growing staff that is expected to more than double in the next few years.

The move from a smaller Exchange Terrace office comes not only as the company moves ahead with construction of Revolution Wind, a 65-turbine wind farm on which it is partnering with utility Eversource, but also just before the announcement of a decision that could see its investment in Southern New England grow even larger.

Read the full article at the Providence Journal

Construction Underway on New York’s Largest Offshore Wind Project

July 31, 2024 — Construction is underway in New York on what will be the state’s largest offshore wind farm.

A groundbreaking ceremony on Long Island officially kicked off the start of the project, which will support more than 800 direct jobs during its construction phase. It is said the project will stimulate economic benefits from the Capital Region to Long Island – including a $700 million investment in Suffolk County. Once completed, the 924-megawatt Sunrise Wind project will provide enough clean energy to power approximately 600,000 New York homes.

Developed by Ørsted, it will be built under “industry-leading project labor agreements” which officials say will ensure local union labor’s participation in all phases of construction.

Read the full story at Newsweek

To decarbonize, New England is betting big on offshore wind. Can it deliver?

July 24, 2024 — Dozens of hard hats and yellow safety vests were neatly placed on folding chairs. A giant American flag hung from the rafters of a hangar-sized fabrication building. And cellophane-wrapped cookies with blue icing spelling out “Revolution Wind, powered by Ørsted and Eversource,” added the final celebratory touch.

After a rough year for the fledgling U.S. offshore wind industry, the crowd of union leaders, energy company representatives, state and federal officials, media and other guests at the Port of Providence on June 13 were marking the final assembly of the advanced foundation components for the Revolution Wind project, a 700-megawatt offshore wind farm currently under construction 12 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard that will deliver energy to Rhode Island and Connecticut.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee called the now- bustling port – packed with offshore wind turbine components and hosting a gleaming new crew service vessel built for Ørsted, the Danish offshore wind giant, docked nearby – “an example of what can happen all around the country.” The construction progress “marks a pivotal moment, not just for Rhode Island but our country’s offshore wind industry,” McKee added.

Other governors across New England are banking big on the mammoth turbines being installed off the coast to not only keep the lights on as the region moves toward cleaner electricity, but also to meet a surge in power demand from electric vehicles and a shift to electrified home heating. The region’s push into offshore wind comes amid longstanding apprehension by federal regulators and the nation’s electric reliability watchdog over New England’s dependence on natural gas power generation, worrisome when paired with its constrained pipeline capacity during extreme cold.

Whether the hundreds of turbines planned to spring up off the coast — and the major grid upgrades needed to get that power to where it’s needed — can reliably meet those expectations will come down in large part to timing, experts say. That includes not just how fast developers, who are facing supply chain problems and sometimes stiff local resistance and have complained about permitting delays, can get turbines built, but also when the expected demand increase from an electrified future materializes. Also in the mix: how quickly the system is able to inject the power produced offshore and whether it can handle the dips in output that can come with variable generation, said John Moura, director of reliability assessment at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which sets and enforces standards for the American power system.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star

NEW YORK: Fishing Industry Remains Concerned with Offshore Wind Power

July 9, 2024 — East End residents will soon be another step closer to wind power and away from fossil fuel; but local commercial fishermen are raising objections. And, East Enders are waiting to hear how much this wind power project will mean for new utility rates.

The federal government earlier this spring approved what it calls a “record of decision” for a Denmark-based company, Orsted, to build one of the largest offshore wind farms planned for Nassau and Suffolk counties. The decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior is among the last steps to build the windfarm, known as Sunrise Wind, an 84-turbine plant, before actual construction can begin.

Orsted said in a news release that the final permit, a construction and operating plan, is expected this summer from the federal government. Orsted recently completed a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork Wind. Orsted said Sunrise Wind is expected to be completed in 2026.

Both Sunrise Wind and South Fork Wind are in the waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island. South Fork Wind’s cable comes ashore in Wainscott. Sunrise Wind has a power cable running more than 100 miles to Smith Point County Park, before beginning a 17 mile trip through Brookhaven Town to a substation in Holtsville.

Read the full article at Dan’s Papers

 

Ninth Large Offshore Wind Farm Approved for Construction by U.S. BOEM

June 24, 2024 — The pace of approvals continues after years of review with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today approving the ninth commercial-scale offshore wind farm. The project known as Sunrise Wind is currently jointly owned by Ørsted and Eversource Energy, although Eversource has agreed to sell its shares as part of a strategy for existing offshore wind investments.

“BOEM’s approval of the Sunrise Wind project represents another step in building a thriving offshore wind energy industry,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. The bureau issued its approval for the Construction and Operation Plan today after the Department of the Interior in March 2024 published its Record of Decision on the project.

These are the final steps for federal approval for the wind farm which will have a capacity of 924 MW. Sunrise Wind also recently finalized its agreements with NYSERDA on the project’s 25-year Offshore Wind Renewable Energy Certificates (OREC) contract. The COP which was approved today outlines the project’s one nautical mile turbine spacing, the requirements on the construction methodology for all work occurring in federal ocean waters, and mitigation measures to protect marine habitats and species.

“Sunrise Wind is a centerpiece of New York’s clean energy vision, and with this final federal approval we can officially put the construction phase in motion,” said David Hardy, Group EVP and CEO Americas at Ørsted. “BOEM’s approval is an important milestone not just for New York but also for America’s domestic energy sector.”

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Ørsted ditches deal on $625M vessel for installing turbines

May 26, 2024 — The developer of two offshore wind projects in New England has canceled an agreement to use Dominion Energy’s $625 million wind turbine installation vessel, marking the latest setback for the industry’s supply chain.

Ørsted spokesperson Maddy Urbish confirmed Thursday that the wind developer has secured a replacement vessel to install turbines for the 704-megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and the 924-MW Sunrise Wind farm off the coast of New York.

The company has terminated a charter inked with fanfare in 2021 to use Dominion’s enormous installation ship named Charybdis for the two projects.

Read the full article at E&E News

“Steel in the Water” for Next Two Large U.S. Offshore Wind Farms

May 16, 2024 — Two of the larger offshore wind farms planned for the U.S. East Coast have each gotten underway with their offshore installation. Coming just months after the commissioning of the first commercial-scale U.S. offshore wind farm it is the latest demonstration of the building momentum in the sector after the challenges in 2023.

Located roughly 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast and 32 miles southeast of the Connecticut coast, the Revolution Wind project is adjacent to Ørsted and Eversource’s South Fork Wind, America’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm. The project also highlights that it will be the first multi-state offshore wind farm in the United States supplying power to both states.

First steel was achieved for Revolution Wind pounding in the first of the 65 turbine foundations that will hold the turbines. The project is expected to be in operation in 2025. Once in operation, it will generate 400 megawatts of offshore wind power for Rhode Island and 304 megawatts for Connecticut, enough clean energy to power more than 350,000 homes across both states.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

Why U.S. Offshore Wind Power is Struggling

May 13, 2024 — America’s first large-scale offshore wind farms began sending power to the Northeast in early 2024, but a wave of wind farm project cancellations and rising costs have left many people with doubts about the industry’s future in the U.S.

Several big hitters, including Ørsted, Equinor, BP and Avangrid, have canceled contracts or sought to renegotiate them in recent months. Pulling out meant the companies faced cancellation penalties ranging from US$16 million to several hundred million dollars per project. It also resulted in Siemens Energy, the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, anticipating financial losses in 2024 of around $2.2 billion.

Altogether, projects that had been canceled by the end of 2023 were expected to total more than 12 gigawatts of power, representing more than half of the capacity in the project pipeline.

So, what happened, and can the U.S. offshore wind industry recover?

I lead UMass Lowell’s Center for Wind Energy Science Technology and Research WindSTAR and Center for Energy Innovation and follow the industry closely. The offshore wind industry’s troubles are complicated, but it’s far from dead in the U.S., and some policy changes may help it find firmer footing.

Read the full article at the Maritime Executive

Offshore wind sparks new lawsuits

April 18, 2024 — A federal lawsuit has been filed against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and three other federal agencies for an offshore wind project off the coast of Rhode Island.

Non-partisan, Rhode Island-based Green Oceans has filed the lawsuit, claiming the bureau has broken the law by giving Danish energy company Orsted permits for their South Fork Wind and Revolution Wind projects.

Dr Lisa Quattrocki Knight, the president and co-founder of Green Oceans, said their lawsuit is about where these wind farms will be located — at Coxes Ledge off the Rhode Island coast.

“It is an incredibly biodiverse marine ecosystem that NOAA designated in November as a habitat of particular concern because it is one of the last remaining spawning grounds for southern New England Cod,” Quattrocki Knight said. “And is a winter foraging region for five endangered whale species. Nothing should ever have been developed on Coxes Ledge and yet they have gone ahead and permitted these two projects.”

Read the full story at WSHU