source: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/final-contracts-clear-the-way-for-nearly-2-5-gw-of-offshore-wind/

Equinor and bp finalized Purchase and Sale Agreements (PSAs) with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) for the 1,260 Empire Wind 2 and 1,230 MW Beacon Wind 1, which would be built in offshore waters. 

The January 14 signings closed New York State’s second offshore wind competitive solicitation.

The contracts were first awarded in January 2021, when Equinor and bp were selected to provide New York State with offshore wind power in what at the time was one of the largest renewable energy procurements in the U.S.

Once completed, Equinor and bp’s portfolio of offshore wind projects (Empire Wind 1, Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind 1) will produce enough electricity to power about 2 million New York homes, and generate an estimated $1 billion in economic output to New York State, including investments in ports and infrastructure.

Equinor said it aims to install 12-16 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. New York State has a goal of adding 9,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by 2035.

Additional investments of up to $644 million are expected for facilities to support the offshore wind projects. Plans call for $357 million to be spent for an offshore wind tower manufacturing facility to be built at the Port of Albany. Another $287 million is planned for an offshore wind staging and assembly facility at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, owned by the City of New York and managed by New York City Economic Development Corporation.

Empire Wind will be located 15-30 miles southeast of Long Island and span 80,000 acres, with water depths of between 65 and 131 feet. The lease was acquired in 2017 and is being developed in two phases (Empire Wind 1 and 2) with a total installed capacity of 816MW and 1,260 MW. The capacity is expected to enter service in 2027.

Beacon Wind is more than 60 miles east of Montauk Point and 20 miles south of Nantucket and covers 128,000 acres. The lease was acquired in 2019 and has the potential to be developed with a total capacity of more than 2 GW. This first phase will have an installed capacity of 1,230 MW and is expected to enter service in 2028.

The contract signings continued a busy early January for offshore wind in and around New York State.

The federal government will lease an area larger than half the size of Rhode Island off New Jersey’s and New York’s coasts for wind power development, the first offshore lease in the Biden Administration, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced January 12.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management auction of nearly 500,000 acres (202,300 hectares) is planned for February. It covers parcels off the so-called New York Bight and could lead to enough energy production to power up to 2 million homes, according to the Interior Department.

The announcement came as President Joe Biden’s administration aims to reach 30 GW of offshore wind production by 2030, with more than half of it expected to come from New Jersey and New York by 2035. Projects developed as part of the lease announcement account for up to 7 GW, the department said.

Days earlier, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $500 million offshore wind investment to include manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure. The state plans to develop 4,300 MW of offshore wind energy, representing nearly half of New York’s 9,000 MW goal for 2035. Coupled with the $500 million, the state will launch its next offshore wind procurement in 2022, which is expected to result in at least 2 GW of new projects.

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source: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/solar/swift-current-orders-1-2-gw-of-solar-modules-from-first-solar/

First Solar said that Boston-based Swift Current Energy placed an order for 1.2 GW_DC of First Solar’s thin film photovoltaic (PV) solar modules. The modules will be delivered in 2023 and 2024. Terms were not disclosed.

The order is the largest to date for Swift Current, which was founded in 2016 and has a pipeline of more than 6 GW of planned renewable assets across North America. 

In December 2021, Swift Current agreed to buy 41 N149/4.X wind turbines from Nordex Group for Swift Current’s 196 MW Castle Gap Wind Project in Texas. The deal included a service contract covering five years of operations and maintenance.

The Castle Gap Project is expected to enter service by the end of 2022 and is Swift Current’s second large-scale wind development in Texas. In 2019, the company developed and commercialized the 550 MW High Lonesome Wind Project in Crockett and Upton counties.

In April 2021, Buckeye Partners and Nala Renewables acquired majority ownership in Swift Current Energy. The deal was intended to enable Swift Current to accelerate its growth plans and allow Buckeye and Nala Renewables to invest in a renewable energy platform. Swift Current’s management retained a minority ownership through its holding company, Lookout Ridge Energy Partners, and remained in place as the company’s management.

First Solar is investing $680 million to expand its domestic PV solar manufacturing capacity by 3.3 GW annually. Work is under way on its third U.S. manufacturing facility, in Lake Township, Ohio, near Toledo. The new facility is expected to be commissioned in the first half of 2023 and, when fully operational, will scale the company’s Northwest Ohio footprint to a total annual capacity of 6 GW.

In addition to its Ohio manufacturing facilities, First Solar operates factories in Vietnam and Malaysia. It is also building a 3.3 GW factory in India that is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2023. With First Solar’s expansion in the U.S. and India and optimization of its existing fleet, the company anticipates that its nameplate manufacturing capacity will double to 16 GW by 2024.

Swift Current Energy acquires, develops, constructs, owns and operates utility-scale wind, solar energy and battery storage projects across the U.S. Backed by Buckeye Partners L.P. and Nala Renewables, Swift Current has commercialized 1.1 GW of renewable energy projects. Swift Current Energy is headquartered in Boston, Mass., and has offices in Illinois, Maine, Montana and Texas, U.S.

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source: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/wind-power/offshore-wind-projects-gain-federal-funding/

The National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium (NOWRDC) announced $3.4 million in funding for six new wind projects in supply chain efficiency, asset monitoring, and inspection.

Three new supply chain projects are aimed at ensuring quality component production and simplifying transportation of major wind plant components. Recipients include the Electric Power Research Institute for “Verifying Offshore Wind Turbine Blade Integrity During Manufacture”; GE Renewable Energy for “Weld Assembly of Large Castings”; and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for “Standardized Scalable Mooring Solutions Optimized for the U.S. Supply Chain.”

Three other asset monitoring and inspection projects are aimed at reducing operational costs for offshore wind farms. Recipients include GE Research for “Autonomous Vessel-Based Multi-Sensing System for Inspection and Monitoring”; University of Massachusetts – Lowell  for “A Novel Structural Health Monitoring System for Offshore Wind Turbines”; and Dive Technologies for “Fully Autonomous Subsea Asset Inspection by a Shore-Launched Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.”

Sam Russo, COO of Dive Technologies, said the federal funding will allow Dive to deploy robotic systems to demonstrate all-weather, long-endurance and fully autonomous seafloor asset health monitoring.

“This next-generation technology is poised to deliver safer and more cost-efficient seafloor and infrastructure data collection, advancing the nation’s offshore wind goals,” he said.

Once contracted, the six new projects bring the NOWRDC’s total funding portfolio to $31 million for 46 projects. The first two RFPs have resulted in 40 projects receiving $28 million from the Consortium.

In 2020, NOWRDC awarded $10.3 million to 12 projects through a competitive process. The projects included:

• Demonstration of Shallow-Water Mooring Components for FOWTs (ShallowFloat) – Principal Power, Inc.
• Design and Certification of Taut-synthetic Moorings for Floating Wind Turbines – University of Maine
• Dual-Functional Tuned Inerter Damper for Enhanced Semi-Sub Offshore Wind Turbine – Virginia Tech University
• Innovative Anchoring System for Floating Offshore Wind – Triton Systems, Inc
• Techno-Economic Mooring Configuration and Design for Floating Offshore Wind – University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Development of Advanced Methods for Evaluating Grid Stability Impacts – National Renewable Energy Laboratory
• Development of a Metocean Reference Site near the Massachusetts and Rhode Island Wind Energy Areas – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
• Enabling Condition Based Maintenance for Offshore Wind – General Electric
• Physics Based Digital Twins for Optimal Asset Management – Tufts University
• Radar Based Wake Optimization of Offshore Wind Farms – General Electric
• Survival Modeling for Offshore Wind Prognostics – Tagup, Inc.
• 20GW by 2035: Supply Chain Roadmap for Offshore Wind in the US – National Renewable Energy Laboratory

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) established NOWRDC in 2018 to address research priorities for offshore wind. It supports a goal to deploy 30 GW of U.S. offshore wind by 2030.

The full list of NOWRDC’s portfolio of projects is listed here.

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source: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/lightsource-bp-lines-up-financing-for-480-mw-of-solar-capacity/

Lightsource bp said it closed on a $533 million multi-project financing package and started construction on its 345 MW Ventress Solar project some 30 miles northwest of Baton Rouge in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. 

Lightsource bp will build, own and operate the facility and sell the energy to McDonald’s Corp. and eBay Inc. under long-term power purchase agreements.

Also included in the construction financing deal is the 135 MW Conway Solar project located near Happy, Arkansas, some 55 miles northeast of Little Rock. Lightsource bp will build, own and operate the facility and deliver energy to Conway Corp. under a long-term power purchase agreement for their customers in the City of Conway. 

Construction on the Conway plant will start in March, with full commercial operation expected in mid-2023. Gibson Technical Services, a unit of Orbital Energy Group, is the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contractor for the photovoltaic solar plant.

Debt for the entire portfolio was provided by a number of lead arrangers, with the balance of equity requirements invested and supported by Lightsource bp.

Participants included HSBC Bank USA; National Association; ING Capital LLC;  Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., New York Branch;  NatWest; Societe Generale;  and Standard Chartered Bank.

Lightsource bp said that in the past two years it has raised more than $2.3 billion for projects in 10 states.

Construction at the Ventress Solar site has started, with full commercial operation expected in late 2023. LPL Solar is the EPC contractor, and Ampirical Solutions will be the EPC for the related substation and switchyard.

In late December, Lightsource bp closed on a $376 million multi-project financing package and mobilized construction on its 293 MW Sun Mountain solar project in Pueblo, Colorado, and its 173 MW Bellflower Solar project in Indiana. 

Lightsource bp will build, own and operate the Colorado solar facility and deliver the energy it generates to Xcel Energy under a long-term power purchase agreement. The solar project is Lightsource bp’s second in Pueblo, representing cumulatively almost 600 MW of solar capacity.

The Bellflower Solar project is about 40 miles east of Indianapolis in Henry and Rush Counties. A power purchase agreement with Verizon Communications Inc. was announced in early 2021.

Both solar projects are part of a portfolio financing package. The tax equity investment was secured from Bank of America, marking its fourth transaction with Lightsource bp in two years.

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