FEATURE
THE 2019 US OFFSHORE WIND MARKET UPDATE:
Submarine Power Cable Installation, A Delicate Balance
I
ts 2016 and the culmination of nearly 10 years development is reaching fulfillment as the Block Island Offshore Wind Farm (BIWF) comes online in Rhode Island. Five 6MW GE Turbines, sitting atop traditional 4-leg jacket foundations, 2.9 miles off the south-east corner of Block Island, generating 30MW of renewable energy to serve the community of Block Island. The surplus power generated being transmitted to the Rhode Island mainland via the Block Island Transmission System (BITS) a newly installed 31KM submarine power cable connecting Block Island to Narragansett on the RI mainland. Kudos to Deepwater Wind of Providence RI the developer of the Block Island Wind Farm, offshore wind had arrived in the US.
2019 UPDATE
Fast forward to August 2019 and the US Offshore Wind market has suddenly grown very large, very quickly. Deepwater Wind is now part of Orsted the large Danish Offshore Wind developer now with a US HQ in Boston MA. (Orsted purchased Deepwater Wind in 2018 for $510M). Along with Orsted a plethora of offshore
38 SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
BY BILL WALL
wind developers are vying for the rights to develop projects off the US North East coast. These include Shell New Energies, EDPR, EDF, Equinor, Avangrid, CIP, ENBW, US Wind and others. The current wind energy lease areas that have been acquired by developers in the US northeast region is shown to the right. There is now approximately 4,800MW of Offshore Wind energy planned by US developers in the North East region with “Offtake” agreements. An offtake agreement is either a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) or an Offshore Renewable Energy Credit (OREC) whereby a developer has a contract with either a state agency, a public utility or a group of utilities to purchase the power from their proposed offshore wind farm, usually in response to a state issued RFP for renewable energy. These offtake agreements enable the developer to attract project finance and get to the stage whereby the developer can begin solid orders with Tier One Block Island, America’s First suppliers and plan construction Offshore Wind Farm schedules. As shown below the projects with offtake agreements