Offshore staff
BOSTON, MA — AVANGRID Inc., a sustainable energy company and part of the IBERDROLA Group, has finalized an agreement to assume responsibility as the operations and management services provider for Vineyard Wind 1, the first commercial-scale offshore wind project in the US.
Vineyard Wind 1 is an 800-MW offshore wind project owned in a 50:50 joint venture (JV) between AVANGRID and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) funds CI II and CI III, and it is currently under construction off the coast of Massachusetts.
The agreements include the operations and maintenance service agreement and asset management agreement, which designate AVANGRID as the party responsible for overseeing the operation and management of the facility once construction is complete and commercial operations begin. Through these agreements, AVANGRID will provide services to the Vineyard Wind project and be the lead for the operations management of the wind farm, including the supervision of critical tasks such as turbine, cable and substation maintenance, coordination of contractors, 24/7 control center services, trading, and assets management.
AVANGRID will hire about 20 technically qualified employees, including key roles that will receive intensive training overseas through IBERDROLA’s operational offshore wind farms in the UK and Europe, helping to prepare them to knowledgeably operate the US facility.
Vineyard Wind 1 is scheduled to begin delivering clean energy to Massachusetts in 2023 and achieve commercial operations in 2024. Vineyard Wind 1 will generate clean, renewable, affordable energy for more than 400,000 homes and businesses across the Commonwealth, reducing carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million tons per year while creating 3,600 full-time equivalent jobs and saving ratepayers $1.4 billion over the life of the project.
In January 2022, AVANGRID announced the completion of the restructuring of its existing Vineyard Wind JV to become the largest offshore wind supplier in New England. In total, AVANGRID has a projected offshore wind pipeline of 5 GW on the East Coast of the US—enough to power more than two million households.
In addition to its 50% stake in the Vineyard Wind 1 project (800 MW total), AVANGRID owns 100% of Commonwealth Wind (1,200 MW to Massachusetts), Park City Wind (804 MW to Connecticut) and Kitty Hawk Wind (2,500 MW off the coast of North Carolina).
Over the last year, IBERDROLA has invested in new growth platforms in other countries such as Poland, Sweden, Ireland, Japan and Australia, which has increased the size of the group’s global offshore wind portfolio to 31.7 GW.
08.04.2022
