New York Commission Rejects Petitions to Revise Offshore Wind Contracts

The New York State Public Service Commission on Oct. 12 denied petitions seeking additional funding from consumers for four proposed offshore wind projects and 86 land-based renewable energy projects. The petitions filed by major offshore wind developers and a clean energy group sought amendments to power purchase agreements with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to account for inflationary pressures impacting project economics. The commission chose to preserve the competitive bidding process to procure renewable energy resources in a fair and cost-effective manner.

The petitions were filed by Empire Offshore Wind LLC and Beacon Wind LLC, Sunrise Wind LLC, and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York Inc. (ACENY). The offshore wind developers sought mechanisms comparable to those included in the third offshore wind solicitation to account for unanticipated, extraordinary inflation and other macroeconomic events since the start of the pandemic that threaten the viability of the nascent offshore wind industry. The requests apply to four projects totaling 4,230 megawatts (MW). These include the 924-MW Sunrise Wind project, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource, and three projects by the Equinor-bp partnership: 1,230 MW Beacon Wind, 816 MW Empire Wind and 1,260 MW Empire Wind 2. ACENY requested that an adjustment mechanism be incorporated into 83 existing Clean Energy Standard Tier 1 contracts awarded between 2017-2021, and three renewable portfolio standard contracts awarded in 2016.

The commission found that the contract amendments were not in the best interest of ratepayers. Granting the amendments to executed contracts outside the competitive procurement process would have impacted monthly bills resulting in up to 6.7 percent increases for residential customers and 10.5 percent for commercial or industrial customers above what had been committed.

Similar petitions filed by Clean Path New York LLC for the Clean Path New York project and by H.Q. Energy Services (U.S.) Inc. for the Champlain Hudson Power Express Project are under review by the commission.