NYSERDA CEO lays out next steps in offshore wind solicitation strategy

The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERSDA) had a very active April in which it awarded 2.4 GW of onshore projects, while cancelling another 4 GW of offshore projects after domestic manufacturing plans fell apart.

On the sidelines of American Clean Power’s annual conference in Minneapolis, NYSERDA CEO and president Doreen Harris, in an interview with NPM, discussed the agency’s next steps towards growing the offshore wind industry and other notable in-state renewable goals.

Harris acknowledged that the market is changing as evidenced by the two RFIs the agency has out to help it make informed judgements when it comes to its next round of solicitations.

“When you sign a contract and the project itself may not be constructed for another five-to-six years, we are really looking specifically at the risks that are imparted on the market in that period of time and how we can best design mechanisms to balance the risk between ratepayers and developers,” said Harris, alluding to offshore wind.

“In the RFI we get at that question, which helped us introduce inflation adjustments that now many states are following, but what other mechanisms exist,” Harris said.

The RFI with respect to offshore wind is seeking responses due by May 21 on the structure of the fifth offshore wind solicitation, which Harris said is expected as early as June. The three projects cancelled last month, which would have represented nearly half of the state’s total goals, came after the turbine supplier for the three projects, GE Vernova, pivoted away from the 18 MW Haliade-X turbine platform to a 15.5/16.5 MW one which caused “material changes” to the company’s offshore wind plans.

Harris points out, though, that New York has also gotten successful offshore wind projects completed as the 132 MW South Fork Wind went fully commercial earlier this year and is owned by a joint venture comprised of Orsted and Global Infrastructure Partners.

Behind that is Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind, which Harris expects will both begin construction later this year and be in operation by 2026.

“The actual construction and development of these projects allows us to learn and to begin to get to the point in which the scale of the industry has grown,” Harris said.

As far as the supply chain is concerned, NYSERDA also put out a USD 500m Supportive Manufacturing and Logistics RFP last month, including up to USD 200m in grant funding for the construction, expansion or renovation of port infrastructure and/or manufacturing facilities. Harris said the latter efforts will really focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers in the industry.

“When one really looks at the economic benefits that come from the industry, we have companies all over the state,” said Harris, singling out Ljungstrom, which manufactures anode cages for Sunrise Wind and the rest of the Orsted portfolio in plant in Wellsville, New York. It had retrofitted their facility to deliver components for those projects.

As for the onshore solicitation, as had been reported, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York petitioned the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) for contract relief for 86 onshore projects solicited by NYSERDA. However, they were denied relief.

With the recent award of the 2.4 GW of projects, Harris said if the negotiations are successful then it would allow them to “recontract for a third of the capacity that had been contracted.”

Harris said once the contracts are signed, they will release that information as well on those projects.

Lastly, Harris reflected on how the state is adopting energy transmission strategies. Last May, the PSC was ordered to establish a program to ensure that by 2030, 70% of electric load is served by renewable energy and by 2040, zero emissions associated with electrical demand in states. The technologies being looked at as part of this include clean hydrogen, renewable natural gas, nuclear and geothermal.

“We are doing a number of economic studies around the various resources that could be contributing and also ways they could provide that balancing asset to renewable resources that will be the vast majority of our power generation in the coming years,” Harris said.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.

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