The state of Massachusetts has announced that it will be at least another month before contenders for the state’s fourth, and largest, offshore wind procurement will be unveiled.
As reported by the Cape Cod Times, the state Department of Energy Resources announced on Aug. 6th that the selection of projects will be postponed until Sept. 6. That announcement was contained in a letter submitted to the state’s Department of Public Utilities. The agency’s evaluation team was originally scheduled to announce the selected bids and the start of negotiations on Aug. 7.
As quoted by the Cape Cod Times, the letter said that: “The additional time is needed to consider any impacts to this solicitation from the recently announced federal grant to New England states through the US Department of Energy’s Grid Innovation Program for projects to invest in regional electric infrastructure to ready the onshore transmission system for offshore wind.”
According to the request for proposals associated with the offshore wind procurement, the evaluation team reserved the right to revise the selection and subsequent decision-making schedule “as necessary.”
The current Massachusetts solicitation is for up to 3,600 megawatts of offshore wind generation capacity, with offshore wind developers invited to submit bids for projects ranging from 200 to 2,400 megawatts.
In March, when bids for the current fourth procurement were due, Massachusetts received proposals from Avangrid Renewables, South Coast Wind Energy, and Vineyard Offshore.
The procurement is associated with the wind lease areas identified south of Martha’s Vineyard by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, including leases eyed for Avangrid’s New England Wind 1 (formerly Park City Wind) and New England Wind 2 (formerly Commonwealth Wind). Both of those projects were pulled from the last solicitation because of difficult market conditions and in hope of brokering new contracts under better terms.
Opposition to development of that ocean area has grown in recent months, escalating with the July 13 failure of a turbine blade in the Vineyard Wind lease area, where 62 turbines are planned.
