Deepwater Wind, Vineyard Wind Join Rhode Island RFP

The U.S.-based Deepwater Wind and Vineyard Wind have submitted bids to develop offshore wind projects in Rhode Island as part of the state’s competitive request for proposals (RFP) issued in September.

Deepwater Wind is proposing to expand the Revolution Wind project with additional turbines holding a collective nameplate capacity of some 104MW, as well as develop Independent Wind, a new offshore wind project with 352MW of nameplate capacity.

Vineyard Wind has submitted a bid seeking to develop an offshore wind farm with the options of having 200MW or 350MW of capacity.

Developed by the National Grid in coordination with Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources (OER) and Division of Public Utilities & Carriers (DPUC), the RFP calls for a procurement of up to 400MW of renewable energy.

The state received 41 bids with a total carbon-free capacity of nearly 2,500MW which, besides offshore wind, also included onshore wind and solar resources.

In the coming months, the proposals will go through an evaluation process, and any accepted bids will be subject to a transparent regulatory review by the state’s Public Utilities Commission.

“Rhode Island continues to lead the nation in growing our clean energy economy,” said Governor Gina M. Raimondo. “In just the last two years, we’ve tripled our renewable energy supply while creating hundreds of green jobs. The overwhelming response to this procurement shows that we are ready to keep building on this momentum. I look forward to moving forward with this process and bringing additional clean, affordable and reliable energy to our state.”

Raimondo directed OER at the beginning of the year to work with the state’s utilities to issue the request as part of achieving the goal to make the state’s energy system ten-fold cleaner by having 1,000MW of renewable energy by 2020.