Portal partners
Equinor and EDPR are preparing to build offshore wind farms in the US
Author:Mariusz Dasiewicz
Equinor, involved in the development of projects of marine windmills, among others in the Polish Baltic, as well as one of the leaders of the Polish wind market, Portuguese EDPR, are preparing to build wind farms off the coast of the United States, writes portal gramwgreene.pl
As a result of a federal auction held in the U.S., which was the subject of the operating rights of offshore wind farms of zones off the coast of Massachusetts, the Norwegian fuel company Equinor, which is a partner of Polenergia in its projects of offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea for a total capacity of 1.2 GW, has successfully submitted their offers.
In the auction, the Portuguese energy company EDPR, which has been operating on the Polish wind market for years, signalled interest in offshore investments in the Baltic Sea, at the time when the Polish law introduced changes allowing the construction of artificial islands in the Baltic, which was supposed to allow the construction of offshore windmills.
Equinor and EDPR are among the most active investors in the European offshore sector, and as the auction for the lease of offshore zones off the Massachusetts coast has shown, both companies also have an appetite to put offshore windmills across the Atlantic.
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In the auction on the lease of offshore zones in Massachusetts, conducted by the Federal Bureau of Energy Management (BOEM), EDPR in cooperation with the fuel company Shell made an effective offer through Mayflower Wind Energy LLC.
Mayflower's offer for the exclusive right to develop commercial wind projects on the leased area of the outer continental shelf, with an area of over 500 km2, covered $135 million.
A wind farm of up to 1.6 GW can stand in the leased area, which, as EDPR estimates, would be enough to produce clean electricity corresponding to the demand of over 680,000 households in Massachusetts.
Mayflower is now about to launch research and take formal action to develop the project, and after a positive assessment of the investment, he can set up a wind farm that can be fully operational by mid 2020.
Also worth $135 million, Equinor Wind, a Norwegian fuel company, has successfully made its offer. Earlier, the Norwegians had already made an effective offer in another American offshore auction, which was held in late 2016. At that auction, Equinor offered $42.5 million and included a lease of an area of 315 km2 off the coast of New York State.
The third auction was won by Vineyard Wind, a joint venture owned by the Spanish Iberdrola company Avangrid and the Danish Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
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The total value of the bids submitted reached $405 million and the winners gained land development rights with a total area of 1.5 thousand km2 for a period of 33 years. BOEM assumes that in these zones it is possible to place windmills with a total power of 4.1 GW.
Other European energy companies – including Innogy or Orsted with big plans on the American market – also competed in the auction, but their bids were not surpassed by EDPR and Shell, Equinor and Vineyard Wind.
In the results of earlier auctions conducted by the US maritime authorities, a 800 MW wind farm off the Massachusetts coast is expected to place Vineyard Wind. In the first stage, by 2022, windmills with a total capacity of 400 MW are to be built.
Under what conditions and at what price will energy be sold? For more information, see the article: That's how much energy it's going to cost from the American offshore.
Source: == sync, corrected by elderman ==
