Avangrid targets phased 2.4GW North Carolina offshore wind giant by 2029
Giant array in US Atlantic would be developed in 800MW stages with power brought ashore in neighbouring Virginia
Avangrid Renewables plans to develop its 2.4GW Kitty Hawk offshore wind complex off the coast of North Carolina in three 800MW stages through to 2029, to supply consumers in the PJM Interconnection, the largest US competitive wholesale electricity market.
The developer will site the mega-project – the nation’s second-largest planned offshore wind array after Dominion’s 2.64GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) – in a 495-square-km (112,405 acre) lease area 43km (27 miles) off the coast.
Given that North Carolina’s Outer Banks grid cannot handle such a large injection of electric power, the developer will bring power ashore at Sandbridge, Virginia, south of Virginia Beach, in tranches in 2026, 2028 and 2029, Eric Thumma, senior director of new business, told Business Network for Offshore Wind’s IPF Livestream conference last week.
Northern North Carolina and Virginia are both part of PJM, which also operates the grid in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.
Avangrid, 81.5% owned by Spanish global renewables giant Iberdrola, paid $9m in a 2017 competitive lease round to secure commercial development rights in the zone located in federal waters on the outer continental shelf.
In hindsight, that price-tag was a bargain in comparison with subsequent sums paid to secure control over US east coast offshore wind lease areas. In December 2018, winning bidders paid a record $135m each for three zones off the southern coast of Massachusetts, the last lease sales held by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Industry analysts expect that number to skyrocket when federal regulator Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opens the next round of lease sales in 2021 for areas facing southern Long Island and metropolitan New York.
Avangrid correctly bet that North Carolina and neighbouring Virginia would embrace offshore wind once its economic development, energy supply and environmental benefits became apparent as was occurring in the Atlantic northeast. Virginia is targeting 5.2GW offshore wind by 2034.
Thumma said the recently enacted Virginia Clean Energy Act provides a “great framework” for sector growth and said the next step was for utilities and other potential customers there to contract for capacity. Doing that, in turn, will open avenues for project financing and encourage supply chain companies to located in the mid-Atlantic region.
He did not provide a cost estimate for Kitty Hawk or how the project will be financed. By comparison, Dominion has a $7.8bn price tag for its CVOW array.
In April, BOEM approved Avangrid’s site assessment plan (SAP) for Kitty Hawk that allows for installation of up to two floating Lidar (light and detection ranging) devices and two metocean/current buoys.
The SAP describes the activities a leaseholder will perform for the characterisation of a lease site, with Kitty Hawk’s buoys collecting data by monitoring the wind resource and metocean conditions at the site in the Atlantic.
Thumma said the developer is also working with federal agencies such as the Department of Defence and ocean users such as the commercial fishing industry to “deconflict” the lease area to allow project development to proceed on schedule.
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