Vineyard Wind Goes Big Offshore New York

Vineyard Wind has officially submitted a bid in New York State’s first offshore wind solicitation for the Liberty Wind project which includes the option of up to 1.2GW of capacity to be developed.

The Liberty Wind proposal includes project size options of 400MW, 800MW and 1,200MW which would be produced by turbines located 85 miles away from the nearest New York shore in federal waters.

According to the partnership between Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, the turbines will not be visible from any shoreline and will be supported by foundation components fabricated at a port facility in the Capitol Region and transported down the Hudson River to the project site.

Liberty Wind will deliver power directly to the New York grid at an existing substation on Long Island. The power will be delivered by a submarine cable that comes to shore and is then buried along an existing roadway onshore.

Vineyard Wind will finance and own the generation components of the project, with transmission developer Anbaric Development Partners financing and owning the transmission components.

The project is also expected to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity and thousands of jobs on Long Island, the Capitol Region and in New York City.

“Our team’s extensive offshore wind experience from around the world and nearby in New England, where we are building the nation’s first utility scale offshore wind project, allows us to deliver the best project for New York,” said Lars Thaaning Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind.

“Liberty Wind will bring clean energy at the lowest price to New York ratepayers along with substantial economic benefits for the state through investments in local infrastructure and businesses and by utilizing the state’s existing supply chain and workforce.”

Besides Vineyard Wind, the developers that are participating in the solicitation are Bay State Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource Energy; Mayflower Wind Energy, a joint venture of Shell New Energies US and EDPR Offshore North America; Equinor Wind US; and Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind, a joint venture of EDF Renewables and Shell New Energies.

Initially scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2018, this first phase of offshore wind procurement is expected to jumpstart the industry and support the state’s overall goal of developing 2.4GW of offshore wind by 2030.